page_title: Al-Hasakah
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Al-Hasakah / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Al-Hasakah, Syria, excavation on mound in city centre Deutsch: Al-Hasakah, Syrien, Ausgrabung Zitadellenhügel Stadtmitte
context_page_description: Al-Hasakah also known as Al-Hasakeh, Al-Hasaka or simply Hasakah, is the capital city of the Al-Hasakah Governorate, in the far northeastern corner of Syria. With a population of 188,160 residents in 2004, Al-Hasakah is among the ten largest cities in Syria and the largest in the governorate. It is the administrative center of a nahiyah consisting of 108 localities with a combined population of 251,570 in 2004.
  In 1992, Al-Hasakah was described as "an Arab city with a growing Kurdish population". Other minorities such as Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians also live in the area.
  Al-Hasakah is 80 kilometres south of the city of Qamishli. The Khabur River, a tributary of the Euphrates River, flows through the city. The Jaghjagh River flows into the Khabur River at Al-Hasakah. Around 25% of the city is a Syrian government-controlled enclave, with the rest of the city controlled by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
context_section_description: In the city centre, an ancient tell has been identified by Dominique Charpin as the location of the city of Qirdahat. Another possibility is that it was the site of the ancient Aramean city of Magarisu, mentioned by the Assyrian king Ashur-bel-kala who fought the Arameans near the city. The etymology of Magarisu is Aramaic (from the root mgrys) and means "pasture land". The city was the capital of the Aramean state of Bit-Yahiri invaded by Assyrian kings Tukulti-Ninurta II and Ashurnasirpal II.
  Excavations in the tell discovered materials dating to the Middle-Assyrian, Byzantine and Islamic eras. The last level of occupation ended in the fifteenth century. A period of 1,500 years separated between the Middle-Assyrian and Byzantine levels.
  There are numerous other archaeological tells in the surrounding area such as Tall Sulaymānī, 7.6 kilometers to the north of the city.
  In Ottoman times the town was insignificant. Today's settlement was established in April 1922 by a French military post. After the expulsion and genocide of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, many refugees fled to the area and began to develop it in the 1920s.
  During the French mandate period, Assyrians, fleeing ethnic cleansing in Iraq during the Simele massacre, established numerous villages along the Khabur River during the 1930s. French troops were stationed on Citadel Hill at that time. In 1942 there were 7,835 inhabitants in al-Hasakah, several schools, two churches and a gas station. The new city grew from the 1950s to become the administrative center of the region. The economic boom in the cities of Qamishli and al-Hasakah was a result of the irrigation projects started in the 1960s which transformed Northeast Syria into a cotton-growing area.
caption: Excavations in 2007 on Citadel Hill. A barracks from the time of the French Mandate of Syria can be seen in the background.
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