The Kurds are, together with the Arabs, Persians, and Armenians, one of the most ancient peoples of the Near East. The country they inhabit is called Kurdistan. The Kurds have their own language, Kurdish. Kurdish is a member of the Indo-European family of languages; like Persian, Afghan, and Beluchi, it is one of the Iranian languages. Kurdish is unrelated to the Arabic or Turkish languages.
Geography and Population:
The number of Kurds in the four parts of Kurdistan and within the borders of four countries ...
[turkey, iran, iraq, syria] that have divided it up between themselves totals about 35 million. This makes the Kurds, after the Arabs, Turks, and Persians, the fourth-largest nation in the Near East.
Kurdistan, which has since time immemorial been inhabited by the Kurds, has a territory of 500,000 square km, which is as large as that of France. In other words, the Kurds are not a minority in their country; they are the majority. The Kurdish question is not the problem of a minority of the population of this or that country; it is the question of a divided country and a nation. Like all other nations, the Kurds too have the right to self-determination.
The borders that divide Kurdistan are neither natural, economic, nor cultural borders. They are artificial borders that have been drawn against the will of the Kurdish people according to the interests of the forces that did the dividing and the balance of power. In many cases these borders have divided villages, towns, even families, and have had divisive and destructive effects on economic, social, and cultural life.
The largest part of Kurdistan, which in terms of both its population and its territory makes up about one-half of the total, lies in the north inside the state borders of Turkey. This part amounts to one-third of the total territory of Turkey, and includes more than twenty provinces in the "eastern and northeastern regions". Other parts, according to their size, are eastern Kurdistan (within the borders of Iran), southern Kurdistan (within the borders of Iraq), and Kurdish areas within the borders of Syria. In all of these parts a large number of the inhabitants - between 80 and 90% - are Kurdish. A certain proportion of the Kurds have lived since earlier times, or because of the migrations and refugee movements of recent times, in other regions and in the large cities of these countries. If we count these as well, then about 18 to 20 million Kurds live within the borders of Turkey, 8 to 10 million in Iran, 5 million in Iraq, and 1.5 million in Syria.
About one-third of the labor migrants who have left Turkey in the past 20 to 30 years and come to the countries of Europe are Kurds. If we add to this the number of Kurds from Turkey and the other parts of Kurdistan who have fled to Europe in recent years for political and economic reasons, the number of Kurds living in European countries comes to about 1 million. Because of migration and refugee movements, Kurdish communities have also formed in North America and Australia.