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, the biggest town of the region of Mesopotamia (44° 25′ E., 35° 25′ N.,) bounded by the Little Zab in the north-west, the D̲j̲abal Ḥamrīn in the south-west, the Diyālā in the south-east and the mountain chains of the Zagros in the north-east. It is identified by some (e.g. C. J. Gadd in Rev. d’Assyr. et d’Arch . Or., xxiii (1926), 64, and by Sidney Smith) as the site of the ancient city of Arrapḫa, and so Kirkūk participated in the revolt of the son of Shalmaneser II (850-824 B.C.) against his ageing father; again it rose up in the reign of Ashur Dan I…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …