Zakho

Zakho is a city in Iraq, at the centre of the eponymous Zakho District of the Dohuk Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan, located a few kilometers from the Iraqi Turkish border. The city has a population of 190,000. It may have originally begun on a small island surrounded on all sides by the Little Khabur river, which flows through the modern city. The Khabur flows west from Zakho to form the border between Iraq and Turkey, continuing into the Tigris. The most important rivers in the area are the Zeriza, Seerkotik and the aforementioned Little Khabur. In July 2010, Zakho became the seat of the University of Zakho, one of only eleven public universities in the Iraqi Kurdistan region. According to an oral tradition transmitted by a Jewish informant from Zakho, Me'allim Levi, Zakho was established in 1568 by Slivani tribesmen, whose territory was streached south of the location of the town.

The family of Shamdin Agha came originally from the Slivani tribe, settled in Zakho, and became the most prominent family in Zakho. From the late 19th century onwards, the family of Shamdin Agha ruled “all the Muslims, Jews and Christians of Zakho and its surroundings. Zakho was known to the ancient Greeks. In 1844, the traveller William Francis Ainsworth commented: The appearance of Zakho in the present day coincides in a remarkable manner with what it was described to be in the time of Xenophon.