The social transformation of the historical city centre of Karbala , Iraq

Traditional holy cities, such as Karbala in Iraq, suffer from various challenges, namely socio-demographic transformations. This paper studies three important aspects. First, it investigates land use in the holy city of Karbala for religious, commercial and residential purposes. Secondly, it explores the different methods and materials that can be used to study this. Thirdly, it focuses on the symbolic aspect of the holy city of Karbala, the development of its historic city sectors and its demographic transformation. The paper concludes that the demographic changes are clearly related to political fluctuations in Iraq and the Middle East in general. Relocation and immigration to the city are the outcome of the recent events of violence in the country. This increase in population is directly affecting the standard of services in this city.