| Settlement Type: | City |
| Native Name: | Dihok |
| Pushpin Map: | Iraq |
| Pushpin Label: | Duhok |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: |  Iraq |
| Subdivision Type2: | Region |
| Subdivision Name2: | Kurdistan Region |
| Subdivision Type3: | Governorate |
| Subdivision Name3: | Duhok Governorate |
| Subdivision Type4: | District |
| Subdivision Name4: | Duhok District |
| Leader Title: | Governor |
| Leader Name: | Ali Tatar |
| Unit Pref: | Imperial |
| Timezone: | Arabian Standard Time |
| Utc Offset: | +3 |
| Coordinates: | 36.8667°N 43°W |
| Elevation M: | 565 |
| Elevation Ft: | 1854 |
| Postal Code Type: | Postcode |
| Postal Code: | 42001 |
| Area Code: | 062 |
| Pop Est As Of: | 2018 |
| Pop Est Footnotes: | [1] |
| Population Est: | 340,871 |
Duhok (Kurdish: دهۆک|translit=Dihok;[2] [3] Arabic: دهوك| Dohūk;[4] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ| Beth Nohadra,[5] [6] דוהוך|Dohok[7]) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the capital city of Duhok Governorate.
The city of Duhok received its name from the Kurdish word ’du’ (two) and ’hok’ (lump) as a tax payment of two lumps from the basket of each passing caravan that often carry wheat and barley.[8] According to a tradition presented by Sasson Nahum, Dohuk was initially named Dohuk-e Dasinya, signifying "Dohuk of the Yezidis". However, after a massacre of the Yezidis, the town was abandoned, leading to the settlement of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the area.
The city is home to diverse ethnic groups, including Kurds who are the majority, while other minorities include Assyrians, Yazidis and Arabs.[9] The city also hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are Yazidis and Assyrians after the Islamic State expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two more months of fighting, in addition to the Sinjar massacre in which 5,000 Yezidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL.[10] [11] According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Iraq), as of June 2019, Duhok Governorate hosted 326,106 IDPs across 169 different locations.[12]
The city of Duhok has an ancient Assyrian and Hurrian history attached to it from the time of the Middle Assyrian Empire and Urartu and was originally Assyrian inhabited and called Nuhadra.[8]
The city joined the Kurdish principality of Badinan sometime in the 13th or 14th centuries under the foundation of the Kurdish Hakkari tribe. As observed by Evliya Celebi in Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels), the principality was divided into: Akre, Zaxo, Shixoyi, Duhok, Zibari, and Muzuri.[13]
In 1820, Rich described Duhok as a small town comprising 300 houses, serving as the principal site for the Doski tribe, accompanied by eighty additional villages. The missionary Henry Aaron Stern (1851) observed Dohuk's diverse population, which included Jewish residents. Stern further noted that the kiahya, or village mayor, was an Assyrian of Chaldean Catholic affiliation. By 1859, Rabbi Yehiel found two minyans of Jews in the area. The Muslim and Assyrian Christian communities comprised around a hundred households.
In 1929, the settled population reached approximately 3,500 inhabitants, with Kurds forming the majority. Among the 550 households, 65 were Assyrian Christian, and 30 were Jewish.
The University of Duhok was founded on 31 October 1992.[14]
In 2020, researchers discovered in the Balyuz hills, ten kilometers west of Duhok City, an ancient tablet with Greek inscription which dates back to 165 B.C. The inscriptions refer to Demetrius, the region's ruler during that time.[15]
Seven kilometers southwest of Duhok, Halamata Cave is an archaeological site containing the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai Reliefs, associated with the northern canal system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704–681 BCE) to carry water to his capital city of Nineveh".[16]
According to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok, like most of Upper Mesopotamia, has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) featuring sweltering, virtually rainless summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring. The city can get around two or three snowy days yearly, with more severe falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually rainless, with rain returning in late autumn.