Duhok
دهۆک
Duhok · Chief city of Badinan. Gateway of Badinan, folded between two mountain walls.
- Region
- Başûr
- English name
- Duhok
- Kurdish name
- Duhok
- Sorani name
- دهۆک
- Population
- ≈ 350,000 (2021, urban area)
- Elevation
- 500 m
- Founded/origin
- An old Badinan market town on a pass road used since Assyrian times — the rock reliefs of Halamata above the town were carved around 700 BC.
Duhok guards the narrow valley between the Bêxêr and Zawa ridges where the road from the Tigris climbs toward the mountains. Assyrian kings carved processions of their gods on the cliff of Halamata (Maltai); later the district was known to Syriac Christians as Nohadra, a bishopric from the early centuries of the church. A small town of the Bahdinan emirate for centuries, ruled from nearby Amêdî, it exploded into a city after the Kurdistan Region's autonomy in 1991 and is today the third city and university seat of Başûr.
Duhok is the capital of the Kurmancî-speaking north of Başûr — its university teaches in Kurmancî, its film festival is the region's oldest, and the sanctuary of Lalish and the monastery-hung mountains of the old Nohadra country lie within an hour's drive. The dam lake in the gorge above town is the city's evening promenade.
Hot dry summers softened by the valley's height and greenery; wet mild winters make Duhok one of the fresher corners of Başûr.
Places in Duhok
- Halamata Reliefs — A Neo-Assyrian rock panel of c. 700 BC on the cliff southwest of town — King Sennacherib and seven gods on their sacred animals, watching over modern Duhok.
- Bendava Duhokê — The clay-core dam of 1988 in the gorge north of the city; its quiet lake between bare ridges is Duhok's favourite picnic shore.