Al-Qurnah (Kurnah or Qurna, meaning connection/joint in Arabic) is a town in southern Iraq about 74 km northwest of Basra, that lies within the conglomeration of Nahairat.

[11] The town experienced the Battle of Qurna during the Mesopotamian Campaign of World War I, when the British defeated Ottoman troops who had retreated from Basra in 1914.

[12] The Battle of Qurna secured the British front line in Southern Mesopotamia, thereby protecting Basra and the oil refineries at Abadan in Persia (now Iran).

[13] In 1977, Thor Heyerdahl sailed a reed boat from al Qurnah to show that migration between Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley civilization was possible.

[16][17] After the First Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein diverted river water away from the local marshes causing them to become completely desiccated.