Kurdistan

Mountain and plateau region in southwest Asia near Mount Ararat, where the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan meet; area 193,000 sq km/74,600 sq mi; total population 25-30 million. It is the home of the Kurds and is the area over which Kurdish nationalists have traditionally fought to win sovereignty. It is also the name of a northwest Iranian province in the Zagros Mountains, covering 25,000 sq km/9,650 sq mi, population (2001 est) 1,465,000. The chief towns of the region are Kermanshah (Iran); Irbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Kirkuk (Iraq); Divarbakir, Erzurum, and Van (Turkey); and Qamishle (Syria).

Situated on the ancient Silk Road, on the northern edge of the Fertile Crescent, Kurdistan grew to be a prosperous area during the Middle Ages. Its steady decline began in the 16th century when sea traffic replaced the Silk Road. Today, despite being one of the poorest areas in the Middle East in terms of income per head, it holds rich oil reserves and is the source of much of the water that flows into Syria, Iraq, and west Iran. Despite the extreme climate, much of Kurdistan is fertile and has traditionally exported grain and livestock to Iranian, Iraqi, and Turkish cities. Nomadism has been drastically disrupted by ongoing tensions between the states with Kurdish minorities. As a consequence of the policies of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the Turkish military, some 5,000 villages in Kurdistan have been depopulated since 1980. Only in Iranian Kurdistan has traditional village life remained intact.