Information: - The Euphrates (Sumerian: : "Buranuna", : "Purattu", : "al-Furt", : "Prt", : "Yeprat", : "Perat", ) is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia. Originating in eastern Turkey, the Euphrates flows through Syria and Iraq to join the Tigris in the Shatt al-Arab, which empties into the Persian Gulf. - Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey, located in the far east of the country in the provinces of Van and Bitlis. It is a saline soda lake, receiving water from numerous small streams that descend from the surrounding mountains. Lake Van is one of the world's largest endorheic lakes (having no outlet). The original outlet from the basin was blocked by an ancient volcanic eruption. Although Lake Van is situated at an altitude of in a region with harsh winters, its high salinity prevents most of it from freezing, and even the shallow northern section is only occasionally an exception. - The IranIraq boundary runs for 1,458 kilometers, from the Shatt al-Arab (known as Arvand Rud in Iran) waterway to the tripoint boundary with modern Turkey at the Kuh e-Dalanper. Although the boundary was first determined in 1639, certain disputes fester, particularly disputes surrounding navigation on the Shatt al-Arab waterway. - Jordan ('), officially The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ('), is an Arab kingdom in Western Asia, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. Jordan is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the east and south, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north, Israel, Palestine and the Dead Sea to the west and the Red Sea in its extreme south-west. Jordan is strategically located at the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe. The capital, Amman, is Jordan's most populous city as well as the country's economic, political and cultural centre. - Iran (, also , ; ' ), also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (' ), is a sovereign state in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia, the "de facto" Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Azerbaijan; to the north by the Caspian Sea; to the northeast by Turkmenistan; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq. Comprising a land area of , it is the second-largest country in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world. With 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th-most-populous country. It is the only country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The country's central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, make it of great geostrategic importance. Tehran is the country's capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic center. - Iraq (, or ; '; '), officially known as the Republic of Iraq ('; ') is a country in Western Asia, bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest, and Syria to the west. The capital, and largest city, is Baghdad. The main ethnic groups are Arabs and Kurds; others include Assyrians, Turkmen, Shabakis, Yazidis, Armenians, Mandeans, Circassians, and Kawliya. Around 95% of the country's 36 million citizens are Muslims, with Christianity, Yarsan, Yezidism, and Mandeanism also present. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish. - The Tigris and Euphrates, with their tributaries, form a major river system in Western Asia. From sources in the Taurus mountains of eastern Turkey they flow by/through Syria through Iraq into the Persian Gulf. The system is part of the Palearctic TigrisEuphrates ecoregion, which includes Iraq and parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan. - Syria, officially known as the Syrian Arab Republic (""), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest. Syria's capital and largest city is Damascus. - Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq, northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, in the northern Middle East. This region (together with northeastern Iraq) is approximately correspondent with what was Assyria from the 25th century BC through to the mid-7th century AD. After the Arab Islamic conquest of the mid-7th century AD the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira ("the island"), also transliterated "Djazirah", "Djezirah", "Jazirah", which derives from the earlier Syriac (Aramaic ) variant "Gazero". The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are in close proximity. - The Circassians (Circassian: , "Adygekher") are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group native to Circassia, many of whom were displaced in the course of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 19th century, especially after the RussianCircassian War in 1864. In its narrowest sense, the term "Circassian" includes the twelve Adyghe (Circassian: , "Adyge") tribes (three democratic and nine aristocratic), i.e. Abzakh, Besleney, Bzhedug, Hatuqwai, Kabardian, Mamkhegh, Natukhai, Shapsug, Temirgoy, Ubykh, Yegeruqwai, and Zhaney, each one represented by a star on the green-and-gold Circassian flag. However, due to Soviet administrative divisions, Circassians were also designated as the following: "Adygeans" (Adyghe in Adygea), "Cherkessians" (Adyghe in Karachay-Cherkessia), "Kabardians" (Adyghe in Kabardino-Balkaria), "Shapsugians" (Adyghe in Krasnodar Krai) although all the four are essentially the same people residing in different political units. - Arabic (' or ' ) is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the "lingua franca" of the Arab world. Arabic also is a liturgical language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. It is named after the Arabs, a term initially used to describe peoples living from Mesopotamia in the east to the Anti-Lebanon mountains in the west, and from northwestern Arabia to the Sinai in the south. - Mosul (', ') is a city in northern Iraq. Since October 2016 it has been the site of a military operation led by the Iraqi Government, under Haider al-Abadi, in an effort to dislodge and defeat militant forces. The city has been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant since June 2014, and no westerner has entered the city until the latest initiative. The Battle of Mosul, a military offensive to retake the city begun in October 2016, is the largest deployment of Iraqi forces since the 2003 invasion by U.S. and coalition forces. - Dayro d-Mor Mattai ("The Monastery of St. Matthew", Arabic, ) is located atop Mount Alfaf in northern Iraq and is 20 kilometers from Mosul. It is recognized as one of the oldest Christian monasteries in existence and is famous for its magnificent library and considerable collection of Syriac Christian manuscripts. It is also the center of an Archbishopric, with Bishop Mor Timothius Mousa A. Shamani serving. - Nineveh Governorate is a governorate in northern Iraq that contains the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. It was an integral part of Assyria from the 25th century BC to the 7th century AD, It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people in 2003. Its chief city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Tal Afar is the second-biggest city. Before 1976, it was called Mosul Province and included the present-day Dohuk Governorate. - Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it significantly overlaps with the Middle East (or Near East), the main difference being the exclusion of Egypt (which would be counted as part of North Africa). The term is sometimes used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. - The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq and empties itself into the Persian Gulf. - The Bekhme Dam is an unfinished multi-purpose rock-fill dam on the Great Zab northeast of Arbil, in the Arbil Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan, northern Iraq. - Nahum was a minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible. He wrote about the end of the Assyrian Empire, and its capital city, Nineveh, in a vivid poetic style. - The Yazidis (also Yezidis, "Ezidi") are an ethnically Kurdish religious community or an ethno-religious group indigenous to northern Mesopotamia (see also Ezidkhan) who are strictly endogamous. Their religion, "Yazidism" is linked to ancient Mesopotamian religions and combines aspects of Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Yazidis who marry non-Yazidis are automatically considered to be converted to the religion of their spouse and therefore are not permitted to call themselves Yazidis. They live primarily in the Nineveh Province of Iraq. Additional communities in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Syria have been in decline since the 1990s as a result of significant migration to Europe, especially to Germany. The Yazidis' cultural practices are observably Kurdish, and almost all speak Kurmanji (Northern Kurdish). The Soviet Union considered the Yazidis to be Kurds, as does Sharaf Khan Bidlisi's "Sheref-nameh" of 1597, which cites seven of the Kurdish tribes as being at least partly Yazidi, and Kurdish tribal confederations as containing substantial Yazidi sections. - A Christian (or ) is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. "Christian" derives from the Koine Greek word "Christos" (), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term "mashiach". - The Persian Gulf is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Indian Ocean (Gulf of Oman) through the Strait of Hormuz and lies between Iran to the northeast and the Arabian Peninsula to the southwest. The Shatt al-Arab river delta forms the northwest shoreline. - Haider Jawad Kadhim Al-Abadi (or al-'Ibadi born 25 April 1952) is an Iraqi politician who has been Prime Minister of Iraq since September 2014. Previously he served as Minister of Communication from 2003 to 2004, in the first government after Saddam Hussein. - A stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and banks. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a "bayou", "beck", "branch", "brook", "burn", "creek", "crick", "ghyll", "gill", "kill", "lick", "mill race", "race", "rill", "river", "rivulet", "run", "runnel", "streamage", "syke", or "wash". - Kuwait ('), officially the State of Kuwait ('), is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. , Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people; 1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates. Expatriates account for 70% of the population. - Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey (Turkish: ), is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Greece to the west; Bulgaria to the northwest; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south. The Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, which together form the Turkish Straits, divide Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. Turkey's location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history. - A drainage basin or catchment basin is an extent or an area of land where all surface water from rain, melting snow, or ice converges to a single point at a lower elevation, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean. Thus if a tributary stream joins a brook that in turn joins a small river which is a tributary of a larger river, there is a series of successively larger (and lower elevation) drainage basins. For instance, the Missouri and Ohio rivers are within their own drainage basins and also within the drainage basin of the Mississippi River. - A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of water. Small rivers can be referred to using names such as stream, creek, brook, rivulet, and rill. There are no official definitions for the generic term river as applied to geographic features, although in some countries or communities a stream is defined by its size. Many names for small rivers are specific to geographic location; examples are "run" in some parts of the United States, "burn" in Scotland and northeast England, and "beck" in northern England. Sometimes a river is defined as being larger than a creek, but not always: the language is vague. - Beth Nahrain or Bet Nahrain or ("house (of the) rivers") is the Assyrian name for the region known as Mesopotamia in the Syriac language (Greek "land between the rivers") as well as its surrounding periphery. Geographically, it refers to the areas around the Euphrates and Tigris rivers (as well as their tributaries). The Aramaic name loosely describes the area of the rivers, not between the rivers, as the literal Greek term does, but both names refer to the same region. - The Neo-Assyrian Empire was an Iron Age Mesopotamian empire, in existence between 911 and 612 BC. The Assyrians perfected early techniques of imperial rule, many of which became standard in later empires. Following the conquests of Adad-nirari II in the late 10th century BC, Assyria emerged as the most powerful state in the known world at the time, coming to dominate the Ancient Near East, East Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Caucasus, and parts of the Arabian peninsula and North Africa, eclipsing and conquering rivals such as Babylonia, Elam, Persia, Urartu, Lydia, the Medes, Phrygians, Cimmerians, Israel, Judah, Phoenicia, Chaldea, Canaan, the Kushite Empire, the Arabs, and Egypt. The Neo-Assyrian Empire succeeded the Old Assyrian Empire (C.2025-1750 BC), and the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365-1050 BC) of the Late Bronze Age. During this period, Aramaic was also made an official language of the empire, alongside the Akkadian language. - Nineveh Plains (, and modern , ) is a region in Iraq's Nineveh Governorate to the north and east of the city Mosul, from which it is also known as the PlainofMosul. It was formerly known as the PlainofSanjar or Sinjar from its major medieval settlement. It was the location of al-Khwrizm's determination of a degree during the reign of the caliph al-Mamun. The area also includes the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Nimrud, and Dur-Sharrukin as well as numerous ancient religious sites such as Mar Mattai Monastery, Rabban Hormizd Monastery, the Tomb of Nahum, and Lalish. - Arabs are a people inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and western Indian Ocean islands. - Nimrud ( / nmrud / ; Arabic : ) is the later Arab name for the ancient Assyrian city originally known as Kalhu , located 30 kilometres ( 20 mi ) south of the city of Mosul , and 5 kilometres ( 3 mi ) south of the village of Selamiyah ( Arabic : ) , in the Nineveh plains in northern Mesopotamia . It was a major Assyrian city between approximately 1250 BC and 610 BC. The city is located in a strategic position 10 kilometres ( 6 mi ) north of the point that the river Tigris meets its tributary the Great Zab . The city covered an area of 360 hectares ( 890 acres ) . The ruins of the city were found within one kilometre ( 1,100 yd ) of the modern - day Assyrian village of Noomanea in Nineveh Province , Iraq . This is some 30 kilometres ( 19 mi ) southeast of Mosul . Archaeological excavations at the site began in 1845 , and were conducted at intervals between then and 1879 , and then from 1949 onwards . Many important pieces were discovered , with most being moved to museums in Iraq and abroad . In 2013 the UK 's Arts and Humanities Research Council established the '' Nimrud Project '' in order to identify and record the history of the world 's collection of artefacts from Nimrud , distributed amongst at least 76 museums worldwide ( including 36 in the United States and 13 in the United Kingdom ) . Archeologists believe that the city was given the name Nimrud in modern times after the Biblical Nimrod , a legendary hunting hero . The city was identified as the Biblical city of Calah ( Hebrew Kelah ( ) , Greek Khalakh ( ) ) , first referred to alongside Nimrod in Genesis 10 , by Henry Rawlinson in 1850 on the basis of a possible interpretation of the city 's cuneiform proper name as '' Levekh '' . In 2015 , the militant organization Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL ) announced its intention to destroy the site because of its '' un-Islamic '' nature . In March 2015 , the Iraqi government reported that ISIL had used bulldozers to destroy excavated remains of the city . A video released in the same... - The Gulf War (2 August 1990 28 February 1991), codenamed Operation Desert Shield (2 August 1990 17 January 1991) for operations leading to the buildup of troops and defense of Saudi Arabia and Operation Desert Storm (17 January 1991 28 February 1991) in its combat phase, was a war waged by coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. - Saudi Arabia, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is an Arab sovereign state in Western Asia constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula. With a land area of approximately , Saudi Arabia is geographically the fifth-largest state in Asia and second-largest state in the Arab world after Algeria. Saudi Arabia is bordered by Jordan and Iraq to the north, Kuwait to the northeast, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates to the east, Oman to the southeast, and Yemen to the south. It is separated from Israel and Egypt by the Gulf of Aqaba. It is the only nation with both a Red Sea coast and a Persian Gulf coast, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert or barren landforms. - Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East. It existed as an independent state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC in the form of the Assur city-state, until its lapse between 612 BC and 599 BC, spanning the Early to Middle Bronze Age through to the late Iron Age. - Groundwater (or ground water) is the water present beneath Earth's surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock become completely saturated with water is called the water table. Groundwater is recharged from, and eventually flows to, the surface naturally; natural discharge often occurs at springs and seeps, and can form oases or wetlands. Groundwater is also often withdrawn for agricultural, municipal, and industrial use by constructing and operating extraction wells. The study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology, also called groundwater hydrology. - Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon"), present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Khorsabad is a village in northern Iraq, 15km northeast of Mosul. The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle, the capital was shifted 20km south to Nineveh. - "Main Stem" is 1942 instrumental by Duke Ellington and His Famous Orchestra. Although recorded in 1942, the single would not be released until 1944 where it was Duke Ellington's last of four number one's on the Harlem Hit Parade. "Main Stem" also peaked at number twenty on the pop chart. - Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located on the outskirts of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq. It is on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. - The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Islamic State (IS), and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh ("dish"), is a Salafi jihadist unrecognised state and militant group that follows a fundamentalist, Wahhabi doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL gained global notoriety in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre. Its adoption of the name Islamic State and its idea of a caliphate have been widely criticised, with the United Nations, various governments, and mainstream Muslim groups rejecting its statehood. - Lalish (also called ) is a small mountain valley village situated in the Shekhan District of Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq, near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. It contains the holiest temple in the Yezidi faith. The temple belongs to ancient times wherein many archaeologists and historians agree that the temple was a part of Sumerian and other ancient Mesopotamian civilizations. Later it became the location of the tomb of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir, who is a central figure of the Yazidi faith. The village is above the town of Shekhan, which had the second largest population of Yazidi prior to the persecution of Yazidis by ISIL. The village is about thirty-six miles north-east of Mosul. - A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage basin of its surface water and groundwater, leading the water out into an ocean. - The Kurds () also the Kurdish people are an ethnic group in the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a contiguous area spanning adjacent parts of eastern and southeastern Turkey (Northern Kurdistan), western Iran (Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Southern or Iraqi Kurdistan), and northern Syria (Western Kurdistan or Rojava). The Kurds are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples and, as a result, are often themselves classified as an Iranian people. - Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the world's largest religion, with over 2.4billion followers, or 33% of the global population, known as Christians. Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah (the Christ) was prophesied in the Old Testament. - Rabban Hormizd Monastery is an important monastery of the Chaldean Catholic Church, founded about 640 AD, carved out in the mountains about 2 miles from Alqosh, Iraq, 28 miles north of Mosul. It has been the official residence of the patriarchs of the "Eliya" line of the Church of the East from 1551 to the 18th century, and after the union with Rome in the early 19th century, it became a prominent monastery of the Chaldean Catholic Church. - The Great Zab or Upper Zab (("al-Zb al-Kabr"), , , "(zba alya)") is an approximately long river flowing through Turkey and Iraq. It rises in Turkey near Lake Van and joins the Tigris in Iraq south of Mosul. The drainage basin of the Great Zab covers approximately , and during its course, the rivers collects the water from many tributaries. The river and its tributaries are primarily fed by rainfall and snowmelt as a result of which discharge fluctuates highly throughout the year. At least six dams have been planned on the Great Zab and its tributaries, but construction of only one, the Bekhme Dam, has commenced but was halted after the Gulf War. - Mesopotamia ("[land] between rivers"; from Ancient Armenian (Mijagetq); "bild ar-rfidayn" "miyn rodn"; "Beth Nahrain" "land of rivers") is a name for the area of the TigrisEuphrates river system, in modern days roughly corresponding to most of Iraq plus Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, Southeastern Turkey, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and IranIraq borders. - Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, , is approximately 7.216.040 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world (after Cairo, Egypt), and the second largest city in Western Asia (after Tehran, Iran). - A lake is an area of variable size filled with water, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are also larger and deeper than ponds, though there are no official or scientific definitions. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams. What entity does 'nimrud' has the relation 'located in the administrative territorial entity' with?
nineveh governorate