Choose wisely. Connect locally.Add your business 
Kirkuk is the capital of Kirkuk Governorate in northern Iraq, a city of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs on the Khasa River, and it is famous for its ancient citadel on a 40-metre mound and for the Eternal Fire of Baba Gurgur, where the great Kirkuk oil field was struck in 1927.
The city is thought to stand on ancient Arrapha, recorded from the 22nd century BC and later the seat of a small Hurrian kingdom. Clay tablets found near the citadel in 1923 show the site was settled by the 2nd millennium BC, and as Karka d'Beth Slokh it was a centre of the Church of the East. The Ottomans built the covered Qaysariyya bazaar in 1855 and the Qishla barracks in 1863.
Since the oil strike the city has grown around its oil industry, and its status is still disputed between the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Region. Visitors come for the citadel with its Blue Dome, the mosque of the Prophet Daniel and the Red Church, the bazaars below its walls, the wax museums of the Qishla and the flames of Baba Gurgur.
Kirkuk Citadel is the oldest part of Kirkuk, a walled quarter on a mound about 40 metres high above the Khasa River, settled since at least the 2nd millennium BC. Most of its houses were pulled down, but mosques, tombs and old homes survive, and in 2021 it joined the UNESCO tentative list.
The Prophet Daniel Mosque in Kirkuk Citadel is named after the biblical Daniel, whom local tradition says lies buried here with two of his companions, Hananiah and Azariah. Its first building was a synagogue, later a church and then a mosque, and its brick minaret and blue dome rise above the mound.
The Blue Dome in Kirkuk Citadel is an octagonal brick mausoleum of the Jalayirid period, raised over the grave of Bogdai Khatun, who died in 1361. Its dome is about 5 metres wide and 10 metres high, its walls carry turquoise tile patterns, and a pit in the ground floor is said to hold her remains.
Tahmazkerd Church, known as the Red Church, is an ancient church in Kirkuk whose surviving mosaics date from before the Islamic conquest. Kirkuk was an early centre of the Church of the East, and its Christians suffered a great persecution under the Sasanian king Yazdegerd II in 445.
The Kirkuk Qaysariyya Bazaar is a historic covered market built in 1855 under Ottoman rule at the foot of the Kirkuk Citadel. Rebuilt in 1978, it has some 365 shops along 24 vaulted lanes entered by seven gates, and its heavy wooden doors and small stalls still make it a busy part of the old centre.
Al-Majidiya Cafe is an old cafe of the Majidiya market quarter in Kirkuk, set behind an arched stone front. Local accounts date it to around 1928, and it belongs to the long tradition of tea houses in the old bazaars of the city, where men met to drink tea, talk and pass the time together.
The Qishla of Kirkuk is a large Ottoman barracks built in 1863 as the army headquarters in the city centre, covering about 24,000 square metres. Its long two-storey arcades surround a wide courtyard, and part of the building now holds cultural spaces, including two wax museums.
Tash Kopru, whose name is Turkish for stone bridge, is an old bridge in central Kirkuk entered through a tall pointed stone archway. Writing of the old town below the citadel, engineer A. M. Hamilton described a bridge of short masonry arches as one of the few built under Turkish rule to survive.
The Kirkuk Folklore Wax Museum, housed in the Ottoman Qishla, uses life-size wax figures to show scenes from the past of the city. Its displays recreate rooms of old homes and gatherings, furnished with carpets, wall hangings and clocks, and include figures of musicians with their instruments.
The Wax Museum of Traditional Handicrafts, also in the Qishla of Kirkuk, shows old crafts and trades of the city with life-size wax figures. One scene sets out a traditional tea house with samovars and rows of teapots, recalling the kind of shops and workshops once found in the old bazaars.
The Khasa River runs through the centre of Kirkuk past the foot of the citadel mound and is a tributary of the Tigris. Early 20th-century accounts describe the old bazaar spilling down from the citadel onto the flat land beside the river, where the water could reach it in times of flood.
Baba Gurgur is the oil field 16 kilometres north-west of central Kirkuk where a great gusher was struck in 1927, the first oil found in northern Iraq. It is famous for its Eternal Fire, gas flames burning from the ground that local belief links to the fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel.
Been to Kirkuk? Add your best shots to the gallery.
Log in to add photosPhoto: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Chad.r.hill at English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Chad.r.hill at English Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Kirkukturk3, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Photo: Enasiqph, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
