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Diyarbakır is the largest Kurds-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province.
Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey. It is the second-largest city in the Southeastern Anatolia Region. As of December 2024, the Metropolitan Province population was 1 833 684 of whom 1 164 940 lived in the built-up (or metro) area made of the 4 urban districts (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur and Yenişehir).
Diyarbakır has been a main focal point of the conflict between the Turkish state and various Kurdish separatist groups, and is seen by many Kurds as the de facto capital of Kurdistan. The city was intended to become the capital of an independent Kurdistan following the Treaty of Sèvres, but this was disregarded following subsequent political developments.
On 6 February 2023 Diyarbakır was affected by the twin Turkey-Syria earthquakes, which inflicted some damage on its city walls.
After the Muslim conquests of the 7th century, the city became known as Diyar Bakr (), in reference to the territory of the Banu Bakr tribe, the Diyar Bakr. (2025). 9780195309911, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195309911 That tribe had already settled in northern Mesopotomia during the pre-Islamic period. In the 7th century, during the caliphate of Uthman and under the regional governorship of Mu'awiya, a portion of the tribe was ordered to settle further north in the lands near the city. The city was later also known in Turkish language as Kara Âmid ("Black Amid"), on account of its black basalt walls.
In November 1937, Turkish President Atatürk visited the city and after expressing uncertainty on the exact etymology of the city's name, "Diyarbekir", in December of the same year ordered that it be renamed "Diyarbakır", which means "land of copper" in Turkish after the abundant resources of copper around the city.See Üngör, Uğur (2011), The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 244. . This was one of the early examples of the Turkification process of non-Turkish place names, in which non-Turkish (Greek, Kurdish, Armenian, Arabic and other) geographical names were changed to Turkish alternatives. (2025). 9789004232273, Brill. ISBN 9789004232273
The Armenian name of the city is Tigranakert/Dikranagerd (Տիգրանակերտ).Western Armenian pronunciation: Dikranagerd; It is known as Amed in Kurdish and in Syriac language as ܐܡܝܕ (Āmīd).
According to the Synecdemus of Hierocles, as Amida, Diyarbakır was the major city of the Roman province of Mesopotamia. It was the episcopal see of the Christian diocese of Mesopotamia. Ancient texts record that ancient Amida had an amphitheatre, thermae (public baths), warehouses, a tetrapylon monument, and Roman aqueducts supplying and distributing water. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus was serving in the late Roman army during the Siege of Amida by the Sasanian Empire under Shapur II (), and described the successful siege in detail. Amida was then enlarged by refugees from ancient Nisibis (Nusaybin), which the emperor Jovian () was forced to evacuate and cede to Shapur's Persians after the defeat of his predecessor Julian's Persian War, becoming the main Roman stronghold in the region. The chronicle attributed to Joshua the Stylite describes the capture of Amida by the Persians under Kavad I () in the second Siege of Amida in 502–503, part of the Anastasian War.
Either the emperor Anastasius Dicorus () or the emperor Justinian the Great () rebuilt the walls of Amida, a feat of defensive architecture praised by the Greek historian Procopius. As recorded by the works of John of Ephesus, Zacharias Rhetor, and Procopius, the Romans and Persians continued to contest the area, and in the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 Amida was captured and held by the Persians for twenty-six years, being recovered in 628 for the Romans by the emperor Heraclius (), who also founded a church in the city on his return to Constantinople (Istanbul) from Persia the following year.
At some stage, Amida became a see of the Armenian Church. The bishops who held the see in 1650 and 1681 were in full communion with the Holy See, and in 1727 Peter Derboghossian sent his profession of faith to Rome. He was succeeded by two more bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church, Eugenius and Ioannes of Smyrna, the latter of whom died in Constantinople in 1785. After a long vacancy, three more bishops followed. The diocese had some 5,000 Armenian Catholics in 1903, Annuaire Pontifical Catholique, 1903, p. 173. but it lost most of its population in the 1915 Armenian genocide. The last diocesan bishop of the see, Andreas Elias Celebian, was killed with some 600 of his flock in the summer of 1915.Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Leipzig 1931, p. 456Pius Bonifacius Gams, Series episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae, Complementi, Leipzig 1931, p. 93F. Tournebize, v. Amid ou Amida, in Dictionnaire d'Histoire et de Géographie ecclésiastiques, vol. XII, Paris 1953, coll. 1246–1247Hovhannes J. Tcholakian, L'église arménienne catholique en Turquie, 1998
An eparchy for the local members of the Syriac Catholic Church was established in 1862. Persecution of Christians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War brought an end to the existence of both these Syrian residential sees.S. Vailhé, Antioche. Patriarcat syrien-catholique, in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, Vol. I, Paris 1903, coll. 1433O. Werner, Orbis terrarum catholicus, Freiburg 1890, p. 164
The city was part of the Umayyad Caliphate and then the Abbasid Caliphate, but then came under more local rule until its recovery in 899 by forces loyal to the caliph al-Mu'tadid () before falling under the sway of first the Hamdanid dynasty and then the Buyid dynasty, followed by a period of control by the Marwanids. The city was taken by the Seljuks in 1085 and by the Ayyubid dynasty in 1183. Ayyubid control lasted until the Mongol invasions of Anatolia, with its last Ayyubid ruler Al-Kamil Muhammad. The Mongols of Hulagu captured of the city in 1260 (Siege of Mayyāfāriqīn), following a long siege with a small Mongol force and a much larger Georgian and Armenian force under the Georgian leader Hasan Brosh. Between the Mongol occupation and conquest by the Safavid dynasty of Iran, the Kara Koyunlu and Aq Qoyunlu – two Turkoman confederations – were in control of the city in succession. Diyarbakır was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1514 by Bıyıklı Mehmed Pasha, in the reign of the sultan Selim I (). Mohammad Khan Ustajlu, the Safavid governor of Diyarbakir, was evicted from the city and killed in the following Battle of Chaldiran in 1514.
Following their victory, the Ottomans established the Diyarbekir Eyalet with its administrative centre in Diyarbakır. The Eyalet of Diyarbakır corresponded to today's Turkish Kurdistan, a rectangular area between the Lake Urmia to Palu and from the southern shores of Lake Van to Cizre and the beginnings of the Syrian Desert, although its borders saw some changes over time. The city was an important military base for controlling the region and at the same time a thriving city noted for its craftsmen, producing glass and metalwork. For example, the doors of Rumi's tomb in Konya were made in Diyarbakır, as were the gold and silver decorated doors of the tomb of Ebu Hanife in Baghdad. Ottoman rule was confirmed by the 1555 Peace of Amasya which followed the Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555).
Concerned with independent-mindedness of the Kurds principalities, the Ottoman Empire sought to curb their influence and bring them under the control of the central government in Istanbul. However, removal from power of these hereditary principalities led to more instability in the region from the 1840s onwards. In their place, sufi sheiks and religious orders rose to prominence and spread their influence throughout the region. One of the prominent Sufi leaders was Shaikh Ubaidalla Nahri, who began a revolt in the region between Lakes Lake Van and Lake Urmia. The area under his control covered both Ottoman and Qajar dynasty territories. Shaikh Ubaidalla is regarded as one of the earliest proponents of Kurdish nationalism. In a letter to a British Vice-Consul, he declared: "The Kurdish nation is a people apart... we want our affairs to be in our hands."
In 1895 an estimated 25,000 Armenians and Assyrian people were massacred in Diyarbekir Vilayet, including in the city. At the turn of the 19th century, the Christian population of the city was mainly made up of Armenians and Assyrian people. The city was also a site of ethnic cleansing during the 1915 Armenian and Assyrian genocide (see: 1915 genocide in Diyarbekir); nearly 150,000 were expelled from the city to the death marches in the Syrian Desert.
The American-Turkish Pirinçlik Air Force Base near Diyarbakır was operational from 1956 to 1997.
Diyarbakır has seen much violence in recent years, involving Turkish security forces, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Between 8 November 2015 and 15 May 2016 large parts of Sur were destroyed in fighting between the Turkish military and the PKK. In early November 2015, Kurdish lawyer and human rights activist Tahir Elçi was killed in the Sur district during a press statement in which he had been calling for a de-escalation in violence between the PKK and the Turkish state.
A 2018 report by Arkeologlar Derneği İstanbul found that, since 2015, 72% of the city's historic Sur district had been destroyed through demolition and redevelopment, and that laws designed to protect historic monuments had been ignored. They found that the city's "urban regeneration" policy was one of demolition and redevelopment rather than one of repairing cultural assets damaged during the recent civil conflict, and because of that many registered historic buildings had been completely destroyed. The extent of the loss of non-registered historic structures is unknown because any historic building fragments revealed during the demolition of modern structures were also demolished. As of 2021, large parts of the city and district were restored and government officials were looking towards tourism again.
Many residences and buildings collapsed or suffered substantial damage in the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes around 200 miles (300 km) from the epicentre. A Turkish professor and former journalist from the country commented, "It is like having an epicenter of an earthquake in Harrisburg and buildings in New York City are collapsing."
In January 2017, the un-elected state trustee appointed by the Turkish government ordered the removal of the Assyrian people sculpture of a mythological winged bull from the town hall, which had been erected by the BDP mayors to commemorate the Assyrian history of the town and its still resident Assyrian minority. All Kurdish language street signs were also removed, alongside the shutting down of organisations concerned with Kurdish language and culture, removal of Kurdish names from public parks, and removal of Kurdish cultural monuments and linguistic symbols.
In the 2019 municipal elections, Adnan Selçuk Mızraklı of the HDP party was elected mayor of Diyarbakir. In August 2019 he was dismissed and subsequently sentenced to 9 years and 4 months imprisonment accused of supporting terrorism as part of a government crackdown against politicians of the Kurds HDP party; the Turkish state appointed Münir Karaloğlu in his place. Other Kurdish mayors in Kurdish cities across the region also suffered a similar fate, with Turkish President Erdoğan vowing to remove any future Kurdish mayors too. Protests against the decision arose which were suppressed by the Turkish police with the use of water cannons; some protestors were killed. Diyarbakır's prison has become home to many political prisoners, mainly Kurdish activists and politicians accused of terrorism charges by the Turkish state. Inmates have been subject to torture, rape, humiliation, beating, murder and other abuses.
Prior to World War I, Diyarbakır had an active copper industry, with six mines. Three were active, with two being owned by locals and the third being owned by the Turkish government. Tenorite was the primary type of copper mined. It was mined by hand by Kurds. A large portion of the ore was exported to England. The region also produced iron, gypsum, coal, chalk, lime, jet, and quartz, but primarily for local use.
The city is served by Diyarbakır Airport and Diyarbakır railway station. In 1935 the railway between Elazığ and Diyarbakır was inaugurated.
After World War II, as the Kurdish population moved from the villages and mountains to urban centres, Diyarbakir's Kurdish population continued to grow. Diyarbakır grew from a population of 30,000 in the 1930s to 65,000 by 1956, to 140,000 by 1970, to 400,000 by 1990, and eventually swelled to about 1.5 million by 1997. During the 1990s, the city grew dramatically due to the immigrant population from thousands of Kurdish villages depopulated by Turkey during the Kurdish–Turkish conflict.
According to a November 2006 survey by the Sûr Municipality, 72% of the inhabitants of the municipality use Kurdish language most often in their daily speech due to the overwhelming Kurdish majority in the city, followed by minorities of Assyrian, Armenian and Turkish language.
There are some Alevi Turkmen villages around Diyarbakır's old city, but there are no official reports about their population numbers.[8] Diyarbakır Alevi-Türkmen köyleri
There have been attempts by Turkish lawmakers to deny Diyarbakır's Kurdish majority identity, with Turkey's Education Ministry releasing a school book named "Our City, Diyarbakir" (" Şehrimiz Diyarbakır" Turkish language) on Diyarbakir Province in which it claims that a Turkish language similar to that spoken in Baku is spoken in the city along with regional languages like Arabic, Persian language, Kurmanji, Turkmen and Caucasian languages. Critics link this to a general trend towards anti-Kurdish sentiment in Turkey.
One of the other common celebrations in Turkey is Nowruz. This celebration is done on the pretext of the beginning of spring and the beginning of the New Year. The establishment of Nowruz has a long history, so much so that it has been celebrated in different parts of Asia for the past three thousand years, especially in the Middle East. In different parts of Turkey, especially the Kurdish regions of this country, Nowruz is considered one of the most important cultural and historical traditions of these regions. Lighting a fire, wearing new clothes, holding a dance ceremony, and giving gifts to each other are some of the activities that are done in this celebration.
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