Al-Hasakah Governorate

Three soldiers were killed by armed militants in Al-Hasakah in an ambush during the Syrian Civil War on 24 March 2012.[3] About a year later, local forces launched the 2013 Al-Hasakah offensive.

After the battle of al-Hasakah in August 2016 between Kurds and the Bashar al-Assad regime, the area was mostly in People's Protection Units (YPG) control.[4]

Until the beginning of the 20th century, al-Hasakah Governorate (then called Jazira province) was a “no man’s land” primarily reserved for the grazing land of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes.[5] During WWI and subsequent years, thousands of Assyrians fled their homes in Anatolia after massacres. After that, massive waves of Kurds fled their homes in Turkey due to conflict with Kemalist authorities and settled in Syria, where they were granted citizenship by the French Mandate authorities.[6] The number of Kurds settled in the Jazira province during the 1920's was estimated at 20,000 people.[7]

French authorities were not opposed to the streams of Assyrians, Armenians or Kurds who, for various reasons, had left their homes and had found refuge in Syria. The French authorities themselves generally organized the settlement of the refugees. One of the most important of these plans was carried out in Upper Jazira in northeastern Syria where the French built new towns and villages (such as Qamishli) were built with the intention of housing the refugees considered to be “friendly”. This has encouraged the non-Turkish minorities that were under Turkish pressure to leave their ancestral homes and property, they could find refuge and rebuild their lives in relative safety in neighboring Syria.[8] Consequently, the border areas in al-Hasakah Governorate started to have a Kurdish majority, while Arabs remained the majority in river plains and elsewhere.

In 1939, French mandate authorities reported the following population numbers for the different ethnic and religious groups in al-Hasakah city centre.[9]

The population of the governorate reached 155,643 in 1949, including about 60,000 Kurds.[10]

The inhabitants of al-Hasakah governorate are composed of different ethnic and cultural groups, the larger groups being Arabs and Kurds in addition to a significant large number of Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians.[11] The population of the governorate, according to the country's official census, was 1,275,118, and was estimated to be 1,377,000 in 2007, and 1,512,000 in 2011.

Qamishli

Ras al-Ayn

Malikiyah

Tell Hamis

Qahtaniyah

Shaddadeh

Amuda

Darbasiyah

Tell Tamer

Jawadiyah

Yaarubiyah

Bir al-Helou

Markada

Arishah

Hawl

Al-Hasakah

The governorate has 4 districts (Mintaqa's). These are further divided into 16 sub-districts (nawahi):

• Al-Malikiyah District
  • Al-Malikiyah
  • Al-Yaarubiyah
  • Al-Jawadiyah
• Qamishli District
  • Al-Qahtaniyah Subdistrict
  • Tell Hamis Subdistrict
  • Qamishli Subdistrict
  • Amuda Subdistrict
• Ras al-Ayn District
  • Ras al-Ayn Subdistrict
  • Al-Darbasiyah Subdistrict
• Al-Hasakah District
  • Bir al-Helou al-Wardiya Subdistrict
  • Al-Hawl Subdistrict
  • Al-Hasakah Subdistrict
  • Tell Tamer Subdistrict
  • Al-Arishah Subdistrict
  • Al-Shaddadah Subdistrict
  • Markada Subdistrict

The Khabur River, which flows through al-Hasakah for 440 kilometres (270 mi), witnessed the birth of some of the earliest civilizations in the world, including those of Akkad, Assyria, the Hurrians and Amorites. The most prominent archaeological sites are:

• Hamoukar:considered by some archaeologists to be the oldest city in the world
• Tell Halaf: Excavations have revealed successive civilization levels, Neolithic glazed pottery and basalt sculptures.
• Tell Brak: Situated halfway between al-Hasakah city and the frontier town of Qamishli. Excavations in the tell have revealed the Uyun Temple and King Naram-Sin's palace-stronghold.
• Tell el Fakhariya
• Tell Hittin: 15 layers of occupation have been identified.
• Tell Leilan: Excavations began in 1975 and have revealed many artefacts and buildings dating back to the 6th millennium BC such as a bazaar, temple, palace, etc.

• ehasakeh The First Complete website for Al-Hasakah news and services