Citadel of Erbil
citadel and archaeological settlement hill in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan
The Citadel of Erbil (Kurdish: قەڵای هەولێر Qelay Hewlêr, Arabic: قلعة اربيل, romanized: Qal'at Erbīl), locally called Qellat, is a tell or occupied mound, and the historical city centre of Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The citadel was added to the World Heritage List on 21 June 2014.
The earliest evidence for occupation of the citadel mound dates to the 5th millennium BC, and possibly earlier. It appears for the first time in historical sources in the Ebla tablets in modern Syria around 2000 BC, and gained particular importance during the Neo-Assyrian period. During the Sassanian period and the Abbasid Caliphate, Erbil was an important centre for Christianity. After the Mongols captured the citadel in 1258, the importance of Erbil declined. During the 20th century, the urban structure was significantly modified, as a result of which a number of houses and public buildings were destroyed.
The buildings on top of the tell stretch over a roughly oval area of 430 by 340 metres (1,410 ft × 1,120 ft) occupying 102,000 square metres (1,100,000 sq ft). The only religious structure that currently survives is the Mulla Afandi Mosque. The mound rises between 25 and 32 metres (82 and 105 ft) from the surrounding plain.
The public source identifies “Citadel of Erbil” as citadel and archaeological settlement hill in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Citadel, Erbil and citadel.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q206236. The Library of Congress control number is sh2016000971. Authority coordinates are 36.191, 44.009. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2000 and 1258.
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This entry incorporates text from “Citadel of Erbil” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.