Diyarbakır

About Diyarbakır

Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. It is considered one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world, having been continually inhabited since c. 8,000 BCE.

Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey. It is the second-largest city in the Southeastern Anatolia Region. As of December 2024, the Metropolitan Province population was 1,833,684, of whom 1,164,940 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of the four urban districts (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur and Yenişehir).

Diyarbakır has been a main focal point of the conflict between the Turkish state and various Kurdish separatist groups, and is seen by many Kurds as the informal capital of Kurdistan. The city was intended to become the capital of an independent Kurdistan following the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, but this was disregarded following subsequent political developments.

On 6 February 2023 Diyarbakır was affected by the twin Turkey–Syria earthquakes, which inflicted some damage on its city walls.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.