Kurdistan literally meaning "the land of Kurds", is an extensive plateau and mountainous area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by Kurds. It covers parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Occupied Kurdistan), northern Iraq (Iraqi Occupied Kurdistan), northwestern Iran (Persian occupied Kurdistan) and part of northern Syria.It roughly encompasses the Zagros and the eastern Taurus mountain ranges.Small areas of Azerbaijan and Armenia are also considered to be a part of Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is the only region which has gained official recognition internationally as an autonomous federal entity. in ancient times, the Guti, Hurrian , Mannai (Mannaeans), and Medes had lived in this region . Kingdom of Corduene which emerged from the declining Seleucid Empire, was located to the south and south-east of Lake Van between Persia and Mesopotamia and ruled northern Mesopotamia and southeastern Anatolia from 189 BC to AD 384. At its zenith, the Roman Empire ruled large Kurdish-inhabited areas, particularly the western and northern Kurdish areas in the Middle East. Corduene became a vassal state of the Roman Republic in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD 384. One of the earliest records of the phrase land of the Kurds is found in a Syriac Christian document of late antiquity describing the stories of Christian saints of the Middle East such as the holy Abdisho. When the Sassanid Marzban asked Mar Abdisho Assyria but his place of origin, he replied that according to ...
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