Bassora
or BASRA, a town of former Asiatic Turkey, the capital of the vilayet of the same name (area, 53,580 square miles; pop. about 785,000), on the W. bank of the Euphrates, here called the Shat-el-Arab, 56 miles from its mouth in the Persian Gulf. The river is divided into a number of channels, and, by evaporation and frequent overflowing, makes the climate very unheld out for the Stuarts, being captured only in 1694. In 1701 the fortifications were demolished. In 1902 a lighthouse was established there.