ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – For long Erbil has been referred to as the “spider city” because of the way it looked from the air. But that may no longer be an apt moniker, because a sharp rise in population has changed its shape, according to recent research by Salahaddin University.
The university’s department of national geography noted that people from nearby cities and rural regions had been moving into Erbil in large numbers, swelling annual growth to 21 percent.
Erbil now resembles a circle, said the study by Hiwa Amin Shwani, a doctoral student at the university: from east to southeast it has grown by nearly a half and from north to northeast it’s grown by almost a quarter, pulling the capital into a round shape.
Besides massive urban immigration from poor rural regions where basic services can be scarce and the war with ISIS too close, Erbil’s population also has been affected by a huge influx of some 1.4 million refugees and internally displaced from Syria and the rest of Iraq.
An economic boom in the Kurdistan Region, predating the ISIS war that began last August, has seen Erbil swell in living standards and size.
The city, also known as Hawler, dates back to at least 6000 BC, earning a place among the oldest inhabited cities in the world and annually attracting tourists from around the globe.
For millennia the Citadel, which dates back close to 7000 years and last year earned a place on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, has remained the heart of Erbil.
The university’s department of national geography noted that people from nearby cities and rural regions had been moving into Erbil in large numbers, swelling annual growth to 21 percent.
Erbil now resembles a circle, said the study by Hiwa Amin Shwani, a doctoral student at the university: from east to southeast it has grown by nearly a half and from north to northeast it’s grown by almost a quarter, pulling the capital into a round shape.
Besides massive urban immigration from poor rural regions where basic services can be scarce and the war with ISIS too close, Erbil’s population also has been affected by a huge influx of some 1.4 million refugees and internally displaced from Syria and the rest of Iraq.
An economic boom in the Kurdistan Region, predating the ISIS war that began last August, has seen Erbil swell in living standards and size.
The city, also known as Hawler, dates back to at least 6000 BC, earning a place among the oldest inhabited cities in the world and annually attracting tourists from around the globe.
For millennia the Citadel, which dates back close to 7000 years and last year earned a place on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, has remained the heart of Erbil.
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