Erbil

Erbil rises around a great citadel mound in the plains of northern Mesopotamia. Centuries of settlement built up the mound, whose steep sides made it a natural stronghold above the surrounding town. Houses on the mound formed a dense settlement, with streets leading toward its gates and the commercial quarters below. Its position on routes between the Anatolian highlands, the Zagros and Baghdad gave Erbil a long role as a meeting place of peoples and trade.

Under the atabeg Muzaffar al-Din in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, Erbil flourished as an independent centre. Schools and religious buildings were endowed in the town, and the Muzaffariya minaret became a landmark beyond the citadel. Mongol armies attacked Erbil during the thirteenth century, but the fortified mound survived to remain the city's centre. Later rulers continued to value the stronghold for its command of the plain and the roads that crossed it.

In 1743 Nadir Shah of Iran besieged the citadel for sixty days before capturing it. The Ottoman sultan ordered the walls of Erbil and Kirkuk repaired two years later and provided a garrison. The citadel continued to shelter houses and neighbourhoods above the markets below, a fortified settlement whose history was shaped by the rival powers seeking control of northern Iraq.