Duhok

Duhok is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the capital city of Duhok Governorate.
Name
The city of Duhok received its name from the Kurdish word ’du’ (two) and ’hok’ (lump) as a tax payment of two lumps from the basket of each passing caravan that often carry wheat and barley. According to a tradition presented by Sasson Nahum, Dohuk was initially named Dohuk-e Dasinya, signifying "Dohuk of the Yezidis". However, after a massacre of the Yezidis, the town was abandoned, leading to the settlement of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the area.
History
The city of Duhok has an ancient Assyrian and Mittani history attached to it from the time of the kingdoms of Nineveh and Urartu.
The city joined the Kurdish principality of Badinan sometime in the 13th or 14th centuries under the foundation of the Kurdish Hakkari tribe. As observed by Evliya Celebi in Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels), the principality was divided into: Akre, Zaxo, Shixoyi, Duhok, Zibari, and Muzuri.
Ottoman period
In 1820, Rich described Duhok as a small town comprising 300 houses, serving as the principal site for the Doski tribe, accompanied by eighty additional villages. The missionary Henry Aaron Stern (1851) observed Dohuk's diverse population, which included Jewish residents. Stern further noted that the kiahya, or village mayor, was of Chaldean Catholic affiliation. By 1859, Rabbi Yehiel found two minyans of Jews in the area. The Muslim and Christian communities comprised around a hundred households.
In 1929, the settled population reached approximately 3,500 inhabitants, with Kurds forming the majority. Among the 550 households, 65 were Christian, and 30 were Jewish.
Modern times
The University of Duhok was founded on 31 October 1992.
The city is home to diverse ethnic groups, including Iraqi Kurds who are the majority, while other minorities include Assyrians, Yazidis and Arabs. The city also hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are Yazidis and Assyrians after the Islamic State expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two more months of fighting, in addition to the Sinjar massacre in which 5,000 Yezidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Iraq), as of June 2019, Duhok Governorate hosted 326,106 IDPs across 169 different locations.
Archaeology
In 2020, researchers discovered in the Balyuz hills, ten kilometers west of Duhok City, an ancient tablet with Greek inscription which dates back to 165 B.C. The inscriptions refer to Demetrius, the region's ruler during that time.
Seven kilometers southwest of Duhok, Halamata Cave is an archaeological site containing the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai Reliefs, associated with the northern canal system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704–681 BCE) to carry water to his capital city of Nineveh".
Climate
According to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok, like most of Upper Mesopotamia, has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) featuring sweltering, virtually rainless summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring. The city can get around two or three snowy days yearly, with more severe falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually rainless, with rain returning in late autumn.
Sister-twin cities-Towns
Mingora, Pakistan
See also
List of largest cities in Iraq
Duhok International Airport
Assyrians in Iraq
Kurds in Iraq
Yazidis in Iraq
Sami Khoshaba Latchin
References
External links
Iraq Image – Dahuk Satellite Observation
Cities in Iraqi Kurdistan
District capitals of Iraq
Populated places in Dohuk Province
Assyrian communities in Iraq
Ancient Assyrian cities
Cities in Iraq
Kurdish settlements in Iraq
Historic Jewish communities in Iraq
Yazidi populated places in Iraq