Throughout history to the present time, Duhok has acquired a strategic position historically and geographically. Between the 25th and 22nd century BC, it changed hands between the Akkadians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Amorites, Gutians, Hurrians and Hattians, before becoming an integral part of Assyria from the mid 21st century BC until the dissolution of Assyria in the mid 7th century AD after the ArabIslamic Conquest. During the Assyrian period the town was named Nohadra. During Parthian-Sassanid rule in Assyria Beth Nuhadra gained semi-independence as one of a patchwork of Neo-Assyrian kingdoms in Assyria, which also included Adiabene, Osroene, Assur and Beth Garmai. During the Christian era it became an eparchy within the Assyrian Church of the Eastmetropolitanate of Ḥadyab. The city became prominent again in 1236, when Hasan Beg Saifadin joined the Kurdish Badinan principality. In 1842, the principality was dissolved by the Ottomans and the region administered from the city of Mosul. In 1898 there were eleven small private schools in the city, including two Assyrian and two Jewish schools. In 1920 there were, in all of Iraq, only five primary schools that were accessible for girls, and one of them was in Duhok. In September 2005, Duhok held a cultural festival for the first time to which Kurdish writers from many countries were invited. Duhok has been a center for many refugees since 2014 as the Kurdistan Regional Government was the only part of Iraq to take in both Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
Demographics
Multiple travelers commented on its ethnic composition in the 19th and early 20th century. The city's population is 340,000. It consists mostly of Kurds with a significant Assyrian community. The Assyrians of Duhok boast one of the largest churches in the region, the Mar Marsi Cathedral, and is the center of an eparchy. Tens of thousands of Yazidi and Assyrian Christian internally displaced persons live in the city as well due to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two more months of fighting, in addition to the Sinjar massacre in which 5,000 Yezidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL. According to the International Organization for Migration, as of June 2019, Duhok Governorate hosted 326,106 IDPs across 169 different locations.
According to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok has a borderline semi-arid and Mediterranean climate with extremely hot, prolonged, dry summers and cold wet winters, similar to most of Upper Mesopotamia. Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring. The city can get around two or three snowy days per year, with heavier falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually dry, with rain returning in late autumn.
