Kurdistan is a region in southwest Asia. The mainly mountainous region extends over parts of Armenia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. The people of the region are known as Kurds. Historically, the name Kurdistan (meaning Land of the Kurds) has been used for the area where the Kurds live. Today, only a small province in Iran is officially named Kurdistan.
People and culture.
The number of Kurds in the region has been estimated at between 30 and 35 million. Most Kurds are Sunni Muslims. They speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language related to Persian.
Millions of Kurds live in the region’s cities, such as Mahabad, Sanandaj, and Bakhtaran in Iran; Arbil, Kirkuk, and As Sulaymaniyah in Iraq; and Diyarbakir and Van in Turkey. Since the late 1900’s, many Kurds have migrated to large cities outside the traditional Kurdish homeland, such as Istanbul and Ankara in Turkey, as well. Many other Kurds live outside of cities, where they farm such crops as cotton, tobacco, and sugar beets and herd sheep and goats. Other important economic activities include weaving and handicrafts.
Except for a brief period in northern Iran from 1945 to 1946, Kurds have never had their own unified country or government. Their desire for cultural and political independence has led to conflicts between them and the governments under which they live.
History.
The Kurds are believed to have descended from Indo-European peoples, particularly the Medes. The Median Empire began in 612 B.C. It included parts of what are now Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. The empire lasted until about 550 B.C., when Media became a province of the Persian Empire.
For the next thousand years, Kurds lived under a succession of foreign rulers, including the Macedonians, the Parthians, and the Sasanians (another Persian dynasty). Muslims conquered the area in A.D. 651, beginning the Kurdish conversion to Islam. In the 1500’s, most of Kurdistan came under the rule of largely independent Kurdish emirates (principalities) within the Ottoman Empire. The neighboring Safavid empire, based in what is now Iran, also controlled part of Kurdistan.
The Ottoman Empire broke apart after the end of World War I (1914-1918). The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres called for new independent nations in the Middle East, including a new Kurdish state. However, Kurdistan was instead divided between Iran and the new nations of Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. From the 1920’s to the 1980’s, Iranian, Iraqi, and Turkish forces put down a number of Kurdish uprisings.
Beginning in 1984, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, commonly called the PKK, rose up in Turkey to demand cultural and political independence for Kurds in Turkey. PKK stands for the group’s name in Kurdish, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan. The movement also spread to some neighboring nations, including Iran and Iraq. Conflicts between the PKK and local governments resulted in the deaths of many thousands of people, mostly Kurdish civilians. In the 1990’s, thousands more died as Kurdish groups in Iraq fought among themselves.
Many Kurdish groups shifted their focus toward gaining cultural and political rights within their national boundaries. But other groups—especially Kurds in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey—continued to strive for an independent Kurdish state. In 1992, the Kurds succeeded in establishing the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. It remains largely autonomous (self-ruling) today.
In 2014, a Sunni extremist group known as the Islamic State occupied areas of northern Iraq adjacent to the KRG area. Islamic State is sometimes known by the initials ISIS or ISIL. As Iraqi government forces retreated, Kurdish security forces (also called peshmerga) used that opportunity to occupy Kirkuk, which they consider to be their capital and cultural center. Peshmerga is Kurdish for those who confront death. After the defeat of the Islamic State in Iraq in late 2017, Iraqi forces retook Kirkuk.
