KurdistanKurdistan (Kurdistan; ˌkʊɾdɪˈstɑːn), or Greater Kurdistan, is a roughly defined geo-cultural region in the Middle East wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages, and national identity have historically been based. Geographically, Kurdistan roughly encompasses the northwestern Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges. Kurdistan generally comprises the following four regions: southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Eastern Kurdistan), and northern Syria (Western Kurdistan).
Assyrian continuityAssyrian continuity is the study of continuity between the modern Assyrian people, an indigenous ethnic minority in the Middle East, and the people of ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia in general. Assyrian continuity is a key part of the identity of the modern Assyrian people.
Assyrian nationalismAssyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. The Assyrian people claim descent from those who established the Mesopotamian Assyrian civilization and empire which was centered in Ashur, modern day Iraq, which at its height, covered the Levant and Egypt, as well as portions of Anatolia, Arabia and modern-day Iran and Armenia.
YazidisYazidis or Yezidis (jəˈzi:di:z; ئێزیدی) are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok. There is a disagreement among scholars and in Yazidi circles on whether the Yazidi people are a distinct ethnoreligious group or a religious sub-group of the Kurds, an Iranic ethnic group.
SyriansSyrians (سوريون) are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, who have Arabic, especially its Levantine dialect, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years. By the seventh century, most of the inhabitants of the Levant spoke Aramaic.
Kurdistan RegionKurdistan Region (هەرێمی کوردستان, Herêma Kurdistan; إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, and Halabja, and bordering Iran, Syria, and Turkey. The Kurdistan Region encompasses most of Iraqi Kurdistan but excludes the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, contested between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central Iraqi government in Baghdad since 1992 when autonomy was realized.
BarwariBarwari (ܒܪܘܪ, Berwarî) is a region in the Hakkari mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The region is inhabited by Assyrians and Kurds, and was formerly also home to a number of Jews prior to their emigration to Israel in 1951. It is divided between northern Barwari in Turkey, and southern Barwari in Iraq. The name of the region is derived from "berwar" ("slope [of a hill]" in Kurdish). The British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard visited Barwari Bala in 1846 and noted that some villages in the region were inhabited by both Assyrians and Kurds.
NimrudNimrud (nɪmˈruːd; ܢܢܡܪܕ النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalhu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1350 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab. The city covered an area of .
Lake UrmiaLake Urmia is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is located between the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in Iran, and west of the southern portion of the Caspian Sea. At its greatest extent, it was the largest lake in the Middle East and the sixth-largest saltwater lake on Earth, with a surface area of approximately , a length of , a width of , and a maximum depth of .