The city of
Sulaimany is located in Iraqi Kurdistan, 355 Km northeast to
Baghdad. The mountain ranges of Goyzha and Azmar to the
Northeast and Glla Zarda to the Southwest form its natural
borderlines.
Sulaimany was
founded in 1784 following Emir Ibrahim Pasha Baban’s decision
to transfer the capital of Baban’s Emirate from (Qala Chwalan)
to a valley, 30 Km to the southwest, surrounded by mountain
ranges. The corner stone laid in the valley founded the city
that was named after Sulaiman Pasha who ruled Baghdad at that
time as a representative of the Ottoman Empire.
Sulaimany remained
the capital of the Baban’s Emirate until 1851 when the Emirate
was annexed to Mosul and the first Governor, lsmail Pasha,
a commanding officer in the Ottoman Empire armed forces, was
sent to Sulaimany to rule the city.
Since the beginning
of the 19th Century Sulaimany became the cultural and scientific
center 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 Sulaimany. It was also a center for preserving and
developing the Kurdish language. According to the census last
held in 1987, the city population was 364,096 people. The
population of Sulaimany Governorate, which in 1987 included nine
administrative provinces, was 951,723 people. go
to world population every second
Currently Sulaimany
Governorate is divided into seven administrative provinces,
which are:
Sulaimany, Chwarta,
Penjwin, Rania, Qaladze, Dokan, Halabja & Sharazoor.
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 that reached its peak in 1988. According to
the 1977 census, the number of villages in the governorate was
1877, whereas, ten years later, in 1987, their number was
reduced to 192 villages. Almost nine years have passed
since the time when in March, 1991, the people of Kurdistan
took steps to establish the Government of Kurdistan Region, the
first freely and democratically elected Government in Iraqi
Kurdistan, rebuilding the country, restructuring its political,
economic and educational systems are the enormous tasks facing
not only the people of Sulaimany, but the Government of
Kurdistan Region , its political parties and all Kurdish people.
The University is to
play an important role in this process, promoting the education
level of a new generation of experts capable of participation in
this reconstruction.
