Why it looks like this

Few maps hold 2,700 years so plainly. On the east side of the Tigris, the walls and mounds of Nineveh — capital of the Assyrian empire and around 700 BC the largest city on Earth — sit as open archaeological land inside the modern street network. On the west bank crowds the old city of Mosul, a dense medieval maze famous for its leaning minaret.

The battle to retake the city in 2016–17 devastated the west-bank old town, including the al-Nuri mosque and its minaret, now being rebuilt. Five bridges — repeatedly destroyed and repaired — stitch the two banks together.