Duhok, or Dihok, is the capital of Duhok Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Its history connects a growing valley city with Bahdinan, Assyrian rock reliefs, modern administration, higher education and the wider governorate’s experience of displacement.

Residential buildings in Duhok, with low flat-roofed houses in front, orange-framed and white apartment towers behind, and rocky hills under a blue sky
Residential buildings in Duhok, photographed by Emir Doski on 12 February 2024. This view shows one part of the modern city, rather than the whole governorate. © Emir Doski · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0.

The city and the valley

Duhok is an urban and administrative centre in northern Iraq, within the Kurdistan Region. Its setting is a valley crossed by the Duhok River, with building extending towards the surrounding hills. The American University of Kurdistan’s account places the dam at the northern end of the older town and describes the city’s commercial links with the wider border region. Duhok city, Duhok district and Duhok Governorate are different geographical units. The distinction is essential when reading population totals, accounts of religious communities or reports about refugee camps. [1] [4]

Bahdinan is a region and a former principality

Amir Hassanpour describes Bahdinan as the name of a Kurdish region, dialect group, river stretch and emirate. Duhok belonged to this wider historical landscape, alongside Amedi, Zakho and Aqra. The emirate’s hereditary seat was Amedi, rather than Duhok. Its history included rivalry with neighbouring Kurdish principalities and pressure from Ottoman and Safavid powers. Hassanpour dates the Ottoman overthrow of the emirate to 1842. He also documents the region’s Kurmanji-speaking Kurdish majority and its Yazidi, Christian and Jewish communities; that regional historical description is not a current city census. [2]

A documented administrative turning point

Decision 211, dated 27 May 1969 and published in the Iraqi Official Gazette on 3 June, created an administrative division named Duhok with Duhok town as its centre. The text authorized the interior minister to organize boundaries and subordinate units. This provides a specific documentary anchor for the modern governorate. It should be distinguished from subsequent boundary changes and from the much earlier history of settlements in the valley. An administrative founding date is not the date when people first lived in the area. [3]

Maltai: royal images above a water landscape

The Maltai reliefs, locally known as Helamata, are carved into the Zawa cliffs above the Duhok valley. Four panels repeat an Assyrian king’s veneration of deities mounted on their associated creatures. Columbia’s 2020 profile notes that no accompanying inscriptions were found and favours a date in Sennacherib’s reign on stylistic grounds. The archaeological park’s later account, following comparative work at Faida, instead favours his successors, probably Esarhaddon and/or Ashurbanipal. It also records comprehensive conservation of all four panels in 2025. Attribution remains an archaeological argument, rather than a name securely read on the monument. [4] [5]

Water, institutions and the modern city

The archaeological park relates the reliefs to canals taking water from the Rubar Duhok across the valley. Its interpretation joins irrigation, royal authority and divine protection, giving the monuments a practical landscape context. Modern Duhok has different institutions and infrastructure: the University of Duhok gives its foundation date as 31 October 1992, while the American University of Kurdistan’s city profile describes a multilingual urban setting in which Bahdini Kurdish is prominent. The apartment buildings in the 2024 photograph are one visible part of this later urban landscape. Ancient waterworks and a modern university belong to distinct phases, not one uninterrupted institution. [1] [5] [6]

Displacement belongs to the wider regional story

Accounts of Duhok’s role in receiving displaced people should identify the place and date involved. A UNHCR report by Rasheed Hussein Rasheed, published on 20 August 2025, follows Hawas, who fled northeastern Syria in 2019 and eventually settled in Gawilan camp in Duhok Governorate. It describes a programme of 45 new shops built there in 2024 to support livelihoods. Gawilan is a separate camp, not a neighbourhood to be counted automatically inside Duhok city. The example documents work and household survival as well as displacement, while avoiding an undated total presented as the city’s present population. [7]

Sources and further reading

  1. American University of Kurdistan, Life in Duhok: city status, valley setting, dam and language environment. Promotional security claims, undated population totals and speculative place-name explanations are not used here.
  2. Amir Hassanpour, “Bahdīnān,” Encyclopaedia Iranica III/5 (1988), p. 485: region, dialect, Amedi-based emirate, communities and 1842 Ottoman takeover.
  3. Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council, Decision 211, 27 May 1969, Iraqi Official Gazette 1740, 3 June 1969; historical legislative text reproduced by Dorar al-Iraq: creation of Duhok administrative division and delegation of boundary organization.
  4. Matthew Peebles and Helen Malko, Maltai Rock Reliefs, Columbia University Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments, 2020 site profile: location, four panels, lack of inscriptions and earlier attribution.
  5. Duhok Archaeological Park, Maltai: Four Rock Reliefs Overlooking the Plain of Duhok, University of Udine LoNAP / Duhok antiquities project: canals, updated attribution, royal imagery and 2025 conservation.
  6. University of Duhok, institutional website: stated founding date, 31 October 1992.
  7. Rasheed Hussein Rasheed, “Building livelihoods: A small shop contributes to the local economy in Gawilan refugee camp,” UNHCR Iraq, 20 August 2025: Hawas’s experience, camp location and 2024 shop programme.
  8. Emir Doski, Duhok City 2, 12 February 2024, CC BY-SA 4.0 photograph, Wikimedia Commons.