province
A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
and
metropolitan municipality
A metropolitan municipality is a municipality established to serve a metropolitan area.
Canada
In generic terms and in practical application within Canada, a metropolitan municipality is an urban local government with partial or complete consol ...
in southeastern
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
. Its area is 15,101 km2, and its population is 1,804,880 (2022). The provincial capital is the city of
Diyarbakır
Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-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 ...
Turkish Kurdistan
Turkish Kurdistan or Northern Kurdistan () is the southeastern part of Turkey where Kurds form the predominant ethnic group. The Kurdish Institute of Paris estimates that there are 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, the majority of them in the ...
.
History
It has been home to many civilisations and the surrounding area including itself is home to many Mesolithic era stone carvings and artifacts. The province has been ruled by the
Akkadians
The Akkadian Empire () was the first known empire, succeeding the long-lived city-states of Sumer. Centered on the city of Akkad ( or ) and its surrounding region, the empire united Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule and exercised ...
,
Hurrians
The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria, upper Mesopotamia and southeaste ...
Medes
The Medes were an Iron Age Iranian peoples, Iranian people who spoke the Median language and who inhabited an area known as Media (region), Media between western Iran, western and northern Iran. Around the 11th century BC, they occupied the m ...
,
Hittites
The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...
,
Armenians
Armenians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to the Armenian highlands of West Asia.Robert Hewsen, Hewsen, Robert H. "The Geography of Armenia" in ''The Armenian People From Ancient to Modern Times Volume I: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiq ...
,
Arameans
The Arameans, or Aramaeans (; ; , ), were a tribal Semitic people in the ancient Near East, first documented in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. Their homeland, often referred to as the land of Aram, originally covered c ...
Achaemenids
The Achaemenid dynasty ( ; ; ; ) was a royal house that ruled the Achaemenid Empire, which eventually stretched from Egypt and Thrace in the west to Central Asia and the Indus Valley in the east.
Origins
The history of the Achaemenid dy ...
,
Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
Byzantium
Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...
Arabs
Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of yea ...
,
Seljuk Empire
The Seljuk Empire, or the Great Seljuk Empire, was a High Middle Ages, high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turco-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, established and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. ...
,
Mongol Empire
The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...
,
Safavid dynasty
The Safavid dynasty (; , ) was one of Iran's most significant ruling dynasties reigning from Safavid Iran, 1501 to 1736. Their rule is often considered the beginning of History of Iran, modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder em ...
Ayyubids
The Ayyubid dynasty (), also known as the Ayyubid Sultanate, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish ori ...
.
Administrative history
In June 1927, the Law 1164 was passed allowing the creation of Inspectorates-General ( Turkish: ''Umumi Müffetişlik'').
The Diyarbakır province was therefore included in the First Inspectorate General (), which was created on the 1 January 1928 and also included
Hakkâri Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to:
* Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq
*Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey
*Hakkâri Province
Hakkâri Province (, ; ), is a province ...
Mardin
Mardin (; ; romanized: ''Mārdīn''; ; ) is a city and seat of the Artuklu District of Mardin Province in Turkey. It is known for the Artuqids, Artuqid architecture of its old city, and for its strategic location on a rocky hill near the Tigris ...
,
Bitlis
Bitlis ( or ; ) is a city in southeastern Turkey. It is the seat of Bitlis District and Bitlis Province.Sanlıurfa, and Elaziğ.
The Inspectorate-General was governed by an Inspector General, who governed with a wide-ranging authority over civilian, juridical and military matters. The office of the Inspector General was dissolved in 1952 during the government of the Democrat Party.
During the 1930s, several place-names in the province were renamed into names which denoted a Turkish origin as part of the nationalist
Turkification
Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...
policy of the
Kemalist
Kemalism (, also archaically ''Kamâlizm'') or Atatürkism () is a political ideology based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Turkey, Republic of Turkey.Eric J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History. Ne ...
government. Travel to Diyarbakır province was banned for foreign citizens until 1965.
Lice
Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...
. The town was re-established about south of its original location.
From 1987 to 2002, Diyarbakır Province was part of the OHAL (state of emergency) region which was declared to counter the
Kurdistan Workers' Party
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, isDespite the PKK's 12th Congress announcing plans for total organisational dissolution, the PKK has not yet been dissolved de facto or de jure. a Kurds, Kurdish militant political organization and armed ...
(PKK) and governed by a so-called Supergovernor who got invested with additional powers than a normal Governor. In 1987 he was given the power to relocate and resettle whole villages, settlements and hamlets. In December 1990 with the Decree No. 430, the supergovernor and the provincial governors in the OHAL region received immunity against any legal prosecution in connections with actions they made due to the powers they received with the Decree No. 430.
Archaeology
Archaeologists headed by the vice-rector of Dicle University, professor Ahmet Tanyıldız, have claimed to discover the graves of the Seljuk Sultan of Rum Kilij Arslan I, who defeated the
Crusaders
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...
. They also revealed his daughter Saide Hatun's burial in Silvan. Researchers dug 2 meters deep across a 35-square-meter area and focused their works on two gravesites in Orta Çeşme Park.
Districts
Diyarbakır province is divided into 17
districts
A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...