Qamishli (or Al Qamishli)

City in the al-Hasakah district, in the northwestern corner of Syria, on the Turkish border, opposite the Turkish town Nusaybin, and 400km/250mi east of Aleppo; population (2000 est) 168,300. Qamishli is a commercial centre on the Jaghjaghah River, a tributary of the Khabur, in an area where wheat and cotton are produced through use of dry farming techniques and irrigation. Industries include sawmilling and cement manufacture. Syria's oil reserves lie in the Karatchok field 80 km/50 mi east of Qamishli.

The city is linked by rail to Ankara and Baghdad and has air services to Aleppo and Damascus. Its population was swelled in the 1980s and 1990s by the exploitation of the Karatchok oilfield and the influx of Christian and Kurdish refugees from Turkey and Iraq.