Qamişlo
قامیشلۆ
Qamishli · De facto capital of Rojava. The railway town that became the heart of Rojava.
- Region
- Rojava
- English name
- Qamishli
- Kurdish name
- Qamişlo
- Sorani name
- قامیشلۆ
- Population
- 184,000 (2004, city)
- Elevation
- 455 m
- Founded/origin
- Founded in 1926 as a station town on the Baghdad railway, facing ancient Nisibis across the new border.
Qamişlo is one of the youngest cities of Kurdistan: it grew where the railway crossed the Jaghjagh river, settled by Syriac and Armenian survivors of the 1915 genocide and by Kurds of the surrounding plain, with Jewish and Arab quarters beside them. The border drawn along the tracks cut it off from its twin, Nisêbîn, sometimes splitting families between two states. The 2004 stadium uprising that began here marked a turning point for Kurds in Syria, and since 2012 the city has been the de facto centre of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, though parts remain under Damascus control.
Famous for its Newroz gatherings, its Syriac churches and its mixed streets where Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac and Armenian are all at home, Qamişlo carries Rojava's plural identity. It is a city of singers — Aram Tîgran's Kurdish songs in an Armenian voice began here — and its café-lined centre keeps the easy-going, border-town spirit.
Hot semi-arid steppe: dry summers above 38 °C, mild winters, and winter rains that feed the wheat plain around the city.
Places in Qamişlo
- Church of Mar Yakub — One of the Syriac churches at the city's heart, named for Jacob of Nisibis — the community that founded Qamişlo still worships in Aramaic here.
- City centre & Post Street — The low, arcaded blocks of the railway-era centre — post office street, gold market and tea houses where the whole plain comes to trade.