Kurdistan

Kurdistan was the mountainous region of the Kurds around the eastern Taurus and northwestern Zagros. Kurdish dynasties and principalities arose there over the centuries.

From the 16th century, rival Kurdish emirates retained varying degrees of autonomy amid wars between the Ottomans and Safavids. The border settlement of 1639 divided Kurdistan between the two empires. After the Treaty of Erzurum in 1823 reduced the Persian threat, the Ottomans brought the chiefdoms under direct control.