Mosul International Airport (IATA: OSM, ICAO: ORBM) is an airport located at Mosul, Iraq, with a concrete runway. It became a civil airport in 1992 with the construction of a new terminal. After undergoing major renovations to be able to reach international standards and category 1 status, it reopened as a civilian airport on December 2, 2007.

Established by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s while Iraq was under the League of Nations British Mandate. After the RAF left Iraq in 1969, it became a main air base of the Iraqi Air Force At least a squadron of MiG-21s was stationed there.

The military air base was one of several Iraqi Air Force airfields in the mid-1970s which were re-built under project "Super-Base" in response to the experiences from Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973.

Originally, 13 airfields were re-built by British contractors, and on all of them also a number of hardened aircraft shelters was built. Subsequently companies from Yugoslavia - previously engaged in building bridges in Iraq - became involved. Due to their specific construction of these airfields - which included taxi-ways leading right out of Hardened Aircraft Shelters (HAS) and laid diagonally to the runways - they became known as "Trapezoids" or "Yugos".

Coordinates: 36°20′N 43°08′E / 36.34°N 43.13°E / 36.34; 43.13

Mosul (Arabic: الموصل‎ al-Mawṣil; North Mesopotamian Arabic: el-Mōṣul; Syriac: ܢܝܢܘܐ Nînwe; Kurdish: Mûsil/Nînewe; Turkish: Musul), is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Nineveh Province, some 400 km (250 mi) northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial areas on both banks, with five bridges linking the two sides. The majority of its population is Arab (with Assyrians, Turcoman and Kurdish minorities). It is Iraq's third largest city after Baghdad and Basra.

The fabric Muslin, long manufactured here, is named after this city. Another historically important product of the area is Mosul marble.

In 1987, the city's population was 664,221 people; the 2002 population estimate was 1,740,000, and by 2008 was estimated to be 1,800,000. People from Mosul are called Maslawis.

An international airport is an airport that can accommodate international flights. They are typically equipped with customs and immigration facilities. Such airports are usually larger, and often feature longer runways and facilities to accommodate the large aircraft commonly used for international or intercontinental travel. International airports often also host domestic flights (flights which occur within the country), to serve travellers to and from these regions of the country.

In many smaller countries most airports are international airports, so the concept of an "international airport" has little meaning. In certain countries however, there is a sub-category of limited international airports which handle international flights, but are limited to short-haul destinations (often due to geographical factors) or are mixed civilian/military airports.^{[citation needed]}

Many airports with regularly scheduled international service have the word "International" in their official names, but others, including such major airports as London Heathrow Airport, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, Frankfurt Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport do not. Conversely, some airports which call themselves international airports, especially in smaller United States cities, in fact have no scheduled international airline passenger service but do have customs and immigration facilities serving charter, cargo and general aviation flights. At many of these airports customs and immigration services are only available with several hours advance notice. One example of such an airport is Gerald R. Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A few, such as Gary/Chicago International Airport in Gary, Indiana, are in fact not international airports at all; they are not designated as airports of entry but aspire to become such in the future and added "international airport" to their names as a marketing tool.^{[citation needed]}