Time zone UTC+3 Local time Saturday 2:43 AM | Autonomous region Kurdistan Elevation 582 m | |
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Weather 9°C, Wind N at 11 km/h, 77% Humidity | ||
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The town Koy Sanjaq (Central Kurdish: کۆیە, Northern Kurdish: Koye, also known as Koya; Arabic: كوي سنجق), from Turkoman, koy, "town', village', sanjaq, "district", together: district town, with the original Kurdish name Bijhenjar, is located in the Erbil Governorate of Iraqi Kurdistan, close to the Iranian border. Most of the town was property of two families (the Hawezis and the Ghafuris) Which were also known as Agha which represents them for being wealthy.
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Map of Koysinjaq, Iraq
Wallace Lyon, travelling through the town in 1923, compared it to Sulaymaniyah and noted that it was a centre for tobacco. The governor at the time was Jamil Agha Hawezi, succeeding the late Hama Agha Ghafuri. In the 1960s then it was all passed on to Fatih Agha Hawezi.
The population is between 50,000 and 100,000. A specific variant of the Aramaic language, Koy Sanjaq Surat, a dialect of Aramaic, is spoken by about 1,000 in {Harmota} or {Armota} Assyrians who settled in the town by the end of the 1800s.
One of the local dishes is Dolma and Jeepa.
Famous people from the city include the Kurdish poet Haji Qadir Koyi, Sheikh Jangi Talabani [older brother of former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani] Zeki Ahmed Henari, Haji Agha, Hama Aghai Gewre Ghafuri, Kaka Ziad Ghafuri, Jalal Talabani, Omar Debaba, Mamosta Aziz, Malay Gewre, Jalal Aghai Hawezi, Fatih Aghai Hawezi, Haji Bakir Aghai Hawezi, Sajid Abdulwahid, Dildar, Dr Xalid Ghafuri,XarAswad, Amin Agha, Mela Masoum, Haji Osman Omar Mamyahya, Dr Fuad Masum, Sewa Koyi. The current President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, who was born in the nearby village of Kelkan, went to school here. In 1949 he joined the town's branch of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
A university, known in English as "Koya University" was set up in the town in 2003.