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Kurds,
a non-Arab Middle Eastern minority population that inhabits
the region known as Kurdistan, an extensive plateau and mountain
area in SW Asia (c.74,000 sq mi/191,660 sq km), including parts
of E Turkey, NE Iraq, and NW Iran and smaller sections of NE
Syria and Armenia. The region lies astride the Zagros Mts. (Iran)
and the eastern extension of the Taurus Mts. (Turkey) and extends
in the south across the Mesopotamian plain and includes the
upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
As of the late 1990s, there were estimated to be more than
20 million Kurds, about half of them in Turkey, where, making
up more than 20% of the population, they dwell near the Iranian
frontier around Lake Van, as well as in the vicinity of Diyarbakir
and Erzurum. The Kurds in Iran, who constitute some 10% of
its people, live principally in Azerbaijan and Khorasan, with
some in Fars. The Iraqi Kurds, about 23% of its population,
live mostly in the vicinity of Dahuk (Dohuk), Mosul, Erbil,
Kirkuk, and Sulaimaniyah.

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