This paper seeks to investigate the origins of al-Zawra’, Baghdad’s first newspaper. Moreover it suggests that solely viewing al-Zawra’ as an element of cultural and intellectual progress within the Ottoman Tanzimat period (1839-1876) and a sign of extended imperial presence, or as the auspicious beginning of the Iraqi Nah?a, ignores its transregional perspective, which was solidly illustrated by the content of the articles and news reports published for Baghdadi consumption in the early 1870s. Its conception as a bilingual (Arabic-Turkish) semi-official newspaper came about during the governorship of Midhat Pasha (1869-1872), and it was printed at the province’s first governmental printing house, under the management and editorship of Ahmed Midhat Efendi. This paper only takes issues from 1869-1871 into account because they include the original charter, and Ahmed Midhat Efendi had not yet returned to Istanbul, and thus, with certainty, was the editor. Despite being a state organ, al-Zawra’ went beyond the role of the vilayet gazetesi (provincial gazette), which was understood to be a mere medium of communication from the Ottoman imperial center in Istanbul. Much of al-Zawra’s content creates a different picture than that of the vilayet gazetesi. It does not only focus on local events, nor does it offer much space to events in Istanbul or other Ottoman provinces, which would tie Baghdad closer to the center, and to the empire as a whole. Instead, the newspaper pays close attention to tribal skirmishes in Iran, the state of the political situation in Afghanistan, border-crossing Bedouins, famines and commercial affairs in the British Raj, among many other transregional topics. All of these topics generate a different cognitive map than would be expected from a semi-official state organ with the aim of Ottomanization. Additionally, with the spread of telegraph wires, the sources for the news themselves were not necessarily from within the Ottoman Empire. Although the province of Baghdad was located on the edge of the Ottoman frontier, and one aim of the Tanzimat was to bring the province back into the Ottoman fold and imbue it with enlightenment and progress, this paper shows that al-Zawra’s content, the news sources, and the cognitive geographical perception of its non-Baghdadi editor Ahmed Midhat Efendi reveal that 1870s Baghdad was perceived as being located in an entirely different, loosely-defined geographical region that did not align with the constructed imperial borders.