The mountain ranges of Goyzha and Azmar to the Northeast and Gilla Zerda to the Southwest of Slemani from its natural borderlines . Slemani was founded in 1784 following Emir Ibrahim Pasha Baban’s decision to transfer the capital of Baban’s Emirate from (QalaChwalan) to a valley , 30 Km to the southwest, surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. The corner-stone laid in the valley founded
the city that was named after Sleman Pasha , who ruled Baghdad at that time as a representative of the Ottoman Empire . Slemani remained the capital of the Baban’s Emirate till 1851 when the Emirate was annexed to Mosul and the first Governor , Ismail Pasha , a commanding officer in the Ottoman Empire’s armed forces , was sent to Slemani to rule the city . Since the beginning of the 19th century Slemani became the cultural and scientific centre of Kurdistan's intellectual thought . Many distinguished writers, poets and artists , who played an outstanding role in the social , national and cultural life of the nation , were from Slemani . According to the census last held in 1987 , the city population was 364 096 people. The population of the Slemani Governorate , which in 1987 included nine administrative provinces , was 951,723 people . Currently the Slemani Governorate is divided into seven administrative provinces .They are: Slemani , Chwarta , Penjwin , Rania , Qaladze, Dokan, Hallabja (old & new) . It should be noted that in most of these places , their villages and settlements were razed to the ground in the aftermath of the Ba’ath annihilation policy which reached its peak in 1988 . According to the 1977 census , the number of villages in the Governorate was 1877...Sulaymaniyah (Kurdish: سلێمانی / Silêmanî, Ar: السليمانية) is a city in Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq. It is the capital of Sulaymaniyah Governorate. Sulaymaniyah is surrounded by the Azmar Range, Goizja Range and the Qaiwan Range in the north east, Baranan Mountain in the south and the Tasluje Hills in the west. The city has a semi-arid climate with very hot and dry summers and very cold winters. Sulaymaniyah served as the historic capital of the Kurdish principality of Baban from 1784 to 1850. The modern city of Sulaymaniyah was founded on 14 November 1784 by the Kurdish prince Ibrahim Pasha Baban who named it after his father Sulaiman Pasha. Because it was founded as the capital of a powerful Kurdish principality, Sulaymaniyah has developed into a large city with a population of about 1.041.490 people. It is the cultural center of the Sorani-speaking Kurds and an important economic center for Iraqi Kurdistan. Contents
[hide] 1 History
2 Demographics
3 Geography
4 Economy 4.1 Foreign Consulates
4.2 Tourism
5 Education
6 Culture
7 Transportation
8 2011 Sulaymaniyah protests
9 Notable people
10 Honorary Citizen
11 Notable Landmarks
12 Sister Cities
13 Photo gallery
14 See also
15 References
16 External links
[edit] History
Mahmud Barzanji was the king of Kurdistan from 1922–1924. An Image of the city, with the Jaff Towers in the backround
The region of Sulaymaniyah was known as Zamwa prior to the foundation of the modern city in 1784. The capital of the Kurdish Baban principality (1649–1850), before Sulaymaniyah was a territory named "Qalachwalan". At the time of the Babani's rule there were major conflicts between the Safavid dynasty and the Ottoman Empire. Qalachuwalan became a battle ground for the two rivals.[3]
Being of strategic importance and lying deep inside Safavid territory, there was major concern that Qalachwalan would be attacked and captured if the Babanies did not give the Safavids military support, as both Sultan Mahmud II and Nadir Shah were trying to gain the support of the dispersed Kurdish Emirates.[3] This obliged Mahmud Pashah of Baban in 1781 to think about moving the center of its Emirate to another safer place. He chose Melkandi, then a village, to construct a number of Serahs for his political and armed units.[3]
In 1783 Ibrahim Pasha of Baban undertook the rule of the Emirate and began the construction of a new city which would become the capital of the Baban Emirate. In 1784 he finished erecting a number of palaces for trade called Qaiseries and bazars, which were used as baths as well, and began inviting people from the surrounding villages and even Emirates to move over to the newly established city, soon Malkandi which was originally intended to be the city itself instead became one of its quarters and still is today.[3]
Sulaymaniyah has since its foundation been the center of Kurdish nationalism, and it was from here that Mahmud Barzanji sparked the first rebellion against the British occupation on May 22, 1919 with the arrest of British officials in Sulaymaniyah and declared an independent Kurdistan at that same year. On 10 October 1921, a statement was issued in Sulaymaniyah, then the capital of Kurdistan, to establish the Kingdom of Kurdistan.[3] Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, now backed by the British, declared himself as the King of the Kingdom of Kurdistan
The British occupation declared Sheikh Mahmud as king in order to silence the residents of Sulaymaniyah and stop their rebellion, but Sheikh Mahmud acted and ruled independently from the British, and wanted them out of the kingdom. As a result, in the same year, he was exiled for several years to the Andaman islands in India by the British occupation, only to return and raise another unsuccessful rebellion centered in Sulaymaniyah in 1923. In January 1926 the League of Nations gave the mandate over the territory to Iraq, with the provision for special rights for Kurds. In 1930-1931,Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji made his last unsuccessful attempt to free Kurdistan, he retreated into the mountains, and later signed a peace accord with the Iraqi government and settled in the new Iraq in 1932. The first and oldest neighborhood in the city is called "Goija", which was named after the mountain overlooking the city. "Sabunkaran" was of the cities first neighborhoods, its name means "those who make soap" in Kurdish, its residents were mainly involved in the soap industry. "Julakan" or the Jews neighborhood where it was mainly inhabited by Kurdish Jews. In the fifties and after the establishment of the state Israel, most of its inhabitants migrated to the newly created state. In 23 April 1982 a demonstration broke out in the city against the arrests and torture of the city's youths who were accused of palnning revolt against the ruling Arab Ba'ath regime. Since liberation in 1991, it has been administered by Kurdish Government and serves as one of the metropolises of Iraqi Kurdistan.
[edit] Demographics
In 1820 and after only 26 years of the creation of the city, a British man named Rech had visited the city and estimated that the number of its residents is more than ten thousand, containing 2144 families of which 2000 were muslim, 130 Jewish, and 14 Christian families.[4] Ottoman documents dating back to 1907 suggests that there were 8702 muslim and 360 non-muslim residents living in the city. According to "Peshkawtin" newspaper which was distributed in Slemani in 1920 estimated its population to be around ten thousand. According to Iraqi government documents of 1947 the number of residents moved up to 23475. In 1998 to 548747, and in 2009 to 648000.[4]
[edit] Geography
The city is located in the northern part of the Iraq and although the weather in the summer is rather warm, with temperaturs ranging from 15 C (60 F) to 35 C (95 F) and some times up until 40 C (104 F).[5] In the winters, there are a significant amount of snow and the Sulaymania temperatures are both dense in the summer and dry and windy in the winter. The city is actually known as the "windy-city" in the region among Kurds. One of the reasons for that is the mountains that surround the city. From north, there are mountain Gouixa and to the south Chuarta, forcing the air in the city to be condensed and compacted and often quite rainy
