The oldest continuously inhabited city on Earth — 8,000 years of human settlement under one citadel mound, and the capital of a thriving Kurdish autonomous region
Erbil (Hewlêr in Kurdish) is the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq — one of the safest and most functional parts of Iraq, with its own government, military (Peshmerga), and economy largely independent of Baghdad. The Erbil Citadel — a mound occupied continuously for at least 8,000 years, with the current mudbrick architecture dating from the 10th–19th centuries and new construction prohibited — is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the world's oldest continuously inhabited urban settlement. The modern city around the citadel has experienced a construction boom since 2003 that has transfor…
Erbil (Arbela in Assyrian) appears in written records from 2300 BCE and was an important city of the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires. The Battle of Gaugamela (331 BCE), in which Alexander the Great decisively defeated the Persian King Darius III, was fought 80km west of the city — effectively deciding the fate of the entire Persian Empire in one afternoon. Erbil was a significant city under the Arab Caliphate, the Seljuk Turks, and the Ottoman Empire; the Begteginid dynasty that ruled Erbil in the 12th–13th centuries built the current version of the citadel. The city was incorporat…