Cities & towns · Mesopotamia
Ur of the Chaldeans
What was Ur of the Chaldeans?
Ur was the sophisticated Mesopotamian city Abraham left behind when God called him to a land he had never seen.
TodayTell el-Muqayyar, southern Iraq
RegionSouthern Mesopotamia
Famous forAbraham’s starting point
Ur of the Chaldeans, near the Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia, was Abraham’s birthplace — a wealthy center of trade and moon-god worship.
From this settled world God called Abram: “Go from your country… to the land I will show you.” Leaving Ur was the first step of faith in the Bible’s long story of promise.
Stephen and the writer of Hebrews point back to that departure as the very picture of faith — obeying and going “without knowing where he was going.”
Key verses BSB · Public Domain (CC0)
Genesis 11:31 “And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.” Genesis 15:7 “The LORD also told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”” Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, without knowing where he was going.”
Related places
Original BibleDawn profile. Drafted with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy. Scripture quoted from the public-domain Berean Standard Bible.