| Type: | Municipality |
| Yüksekova | |
| Province: | Hakkâri |
| District: | Yüksekova |
| Population Total: | 84800 |
| Population As Of: | 2023 |
Yüksekova (Kurdish: Gever|script=Latn;[1] Syriac: ܓܵܘܵܪ|Gāwār[2]) is a municipality (belde) in the Yüksekova District of Hakkâri Province in Turkey and is the largest city in the province.[3] The city is populated by Kurds of different tribal backgrounds including non-tribal. The city also has a large ethnic Turkish population for the region and historically had a large Assyrian Christian population[4] although, the Assyrian share of the population used to be much larger than it is today due to the Ottoman Empire's genocide of Assyrian Christians. Yüksekova had a population of 84,800 in 2023.[5]
Remziye Yaşar (Peoples' Democratic Party) was elected mayor in 2019.[6] She was arrested in October 2019 over terrorism-related charges and replaced by a trustee appointed by the central government.[7]
Yüksekova was historically known as Dize meaning fortress in Kurdish.[8]
The word Yüksekova means 'plateau' and is a Turkification of the original name Gever which in Kurdish means 'raised meadow'. In Armenian, however, the word refers to an administrative unit such as district of province, while the word refers to Zoroastrians in Persian. For Muslims, Gavar means infidel and refers to all non-Muslims.
The city is divided into the neighborhoods of Akalın, Aksu, Altınoluk, Beşbulak, Bölük, Cumhuriyet, Dedeler, Dize, Esen Yurt, Esentepe, Eskikışla, Güçlü, Güllüce, Güngor, Güvenli, İnanlı, İpek, Kerem Zeydan, Merkez, Mezarlık, Sarıyıldız, Vezirli, Yeni, Yeşildere, Yeşilova and Yılmaz.[9]
Population history from 1997 to 2023:[10] [11]
Yüksekova has a dry-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dsb),[12] with very warm, dry summers, and very cold, snowy winters.