Yüksekova (; ) is a municipality (

belde Belde (literally "town", also known as ''kasaba'') means "large village with a municipality" in Turkish language, Turkish. All Turkish province centers and district centers have municipalities, but the Villages of Turkey, villages are usually too ...

) in the Yüksekova District of

Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, ; ), is a province in the southeast of Turkey. The administrative centre is the city of Hakkâri. Its area is 7,095 km2, and its population is 287,625 (2023). The current Governor is Ali Çelik. The province encompasses ...

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 ...

and is the largest city in the province. The city is populated by

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

of different tribal backgrounds including non-tribal and is considered part of

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 ...

. The city also has a large ethnic Turkish population for the region and historically had a large Assyrian Christian population although, the Assyrian share of the population used to be much larger than it is today due to the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

's genocide of Assyrian Christians. Yüksekova had a population of 84,800 in 2023. Remziye Yaşar ( Peoples' Democratic Party) was elected mayor in 2019. She was arrested in October 2019 over terrorism-related charges and replaced by a trustee appointed by the central government.

Name

Yüksekova was historically known as Dize meaning fortress in

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

. This region is attested as early as the 4th century in the Syriac text

Acts of Mar Mari The ''Acts of Mar Mari'' �ܪܲܟܣܝ̣ܣ ܕܡܳܪܝ ܡܳܐܪܝ̣is a Syriac Christianity, Syriac Christian New_Testament_apocrypha#Acts, apocryphal acts. It pertains to the introduction of Christianity in northern and southern Mesopotamia by ...

as Gāwār, a region that

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

was introduced in, and whose inhabitants were converted to Christianity from paganism by Saint Ţomīs. The word Yüksekova means 'plateau' and is a

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 ...

of the original name Gever which in

means 'raised meadow'. In

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

, however, the word refers to an administrative unit such as district of province, while the word refers to Zoroastrians in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

. For Muslims, Gavur means infidel and refers to all non-Muslims.

Neighborhoods

The city is divided into the neighborhoods of Akalın, Aksu, Altınoluk, Beşbulak, Bölük, Cumhuriyet, Dedeler, Dize, Esen Yurt, Esentepe, Eskikışla, Güçlü, Güllüce, Güngor, Güvenli, İnanlı, İpek, Kerem Zeydan, Merkez, Mezarlık, Sarıyıldız, Vezirli, Yeni, Yeşildere, Yeşilova and Yılmaz.

Demographics

Population history from 1997 to 2023:

Climate

Yüksekova has a dry-summer

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

: ''Dsb''), with warm, dry summers, and very cold, snowy winters.

References

{{Yüksekova District Kurdish settlements in Hakkâri Province Populated places in Yüksekova District District municipalities in Turkey