The eastern side of the city including "Qushla" has a more modern feel and contains a number of estates of apartment blocks built during the 1970s and 1980s, As Samawah Stadium, which is home to the local Muthanna football team Samawa FC, as well as technical colleges and the polytechnic.

Uruk was not only the largest conurbation of the first urban civilisation on earth, but it is also the place where the first written script was discovered, the oldest dating back to 3300 BC.

Samawah is built on both sides of the Euphrates and is surrounded by hundreds of palm groves that give it a tropical feel, especially in the southern and northern suburbs.

These groves provide cool respite from the scorching heat of Mesopotamia and were the inspiration for the famous Iraqi folk song "The Palm of Samawah".

The water is extremely salty due to heavy evaporation in the searing heat of Mesopotamia and supports no marine life.

Nigret Al Salman, located in the small town of Al-Salman 200 km (124 mi) south of Samawah, is a desert prison camp built in the style of a fortress where thousands have perished over the decades.

It has been the focus of revolts and popular uprisings by the local population for the past century, most recently in 1991 when hundreds of prisoners, including women and children, as well as Kuwaiti hostages kidnapped by the Iraqi occupation forces in 1990, were freed from their captors by the people of Samawah.

The renovation of the central hospital with the aid of Japanese development funds has resulted in an improvement in medical provision for the residents of the province.

The residents of Samawah have used some simple and low-cost means to brighten up the appearance of the grey concrete walls surrounding official buildings and schion was started in the early 1970s, but was cut off during the period of Saddam Hussein's rule (1979–2003).

In 1979–81 an ethnic cleansing campaign saw Shia Iraqis deemed to be of Persian origin deported by the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.

Samawah had the largest cement factories in the Middle East during the 1970s,[citation needed] with a total production capacity of 2.85 million tonnes a year.

In terms of agriculture, the staple Mesopotamian produce is grown in Samawah, such as dates, wheat, barley, citrus fruits, and tomatoes.

In addition, Samawah is home to the small and rare trade in wild truffles, which grow in the desert regions of Muthanna province.

Large temporary kilns with chimney stacks as high as 30 m (98 ft) are constructed by villagers in the surrounding region to make baked bricks with the same methods used during the Sumerian and Akkadian periods.

The station gained notoriety as the "Robin Hood of Television" when it broadcast the 2006 World Cup games without licence using a single subscription to a pay-per-view satellite channel.

Control of the city was handed over to Dutch forces in August 2003, to the British Army (1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards) in October 2004 who in turn handed over to (The Light Dragoons) again British Army Cavalry Regiment in April 2005 and in October 2005 the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment took over.

Reportedly, local members of the Mahdi Army tried to seize the city in a failed attempt and clashed with the police, who were aided by the Badr Organization.

On May 1, 2016, a government office and bus station in the city of Samawah were attacked in a double car bombing claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.