Bakhdida

Bakhdida ܒܲܓܼܕܹܝܕܵܐ
A view of Bakhdida
Bakhdida
Coordinates: 36°16′11″N 43°22′39″E / 36.26972°N 43.37750°E / 36.26972; 43.37750Coordinates: 36°16′11″N 43°22′39″E / 36.26972°N 43.37750°E / 36.26972; 43.37750
Country	Iraq
Governorate	Nineveh
Municipality	Al-Hamdaniya District
Government
• Mayor	Nisan Karromi
Population (2016)
• Total	Prior to ISIS - 60,000

Bakhdida (Syriac: ܒܲܓܼܕܹܝܕܵܐ‎, Arabic:بخديدا) IPA: [bɑχdɛːdə], also known as Baghdeda, Qaraqosh, or Al-Hamdaniya, is an Assyrian city in northern Iraq within the Nineveh Governorate, located about 32 km (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 km west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Nimrud and Nineveh. It is connected to the main city of Mosul by two main roads. The first runs through the towns of Bartella and Karamles which connects to the city of Erbil as well. The second, which was gravel until being paved in the 1990s, is direct to Mosul. All of its citizens fled to Iraqi Kurdistan after the ISIS invasion on August 6, 2014. The town was under control of ISIS until October 19, 2016 when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul.

The name Bakhdida (Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܟܘܕܝܕܐ‎; Beth Khdeda), is of uncertain origin and when translated from the Syriac language it has two components Beth which means "house", and Khodida which could either mean "Youths" in Aramaic or actually "Baghdadak" a diminutive form of Baghdad, Old Persian meaning "God's gift.". Some also believe that Bakhdida comes from the Aramaic Beth Deta, meaning "Land of the Kite". During the Ottoman period, the Turkish name Qara Qoş (Turkish for black bird), transliterated to English as Qaraqosh or Queragosh, came into use, with Kara Kuş as an alternative spelling based on Modern Turkish orthography. Finally, and as part of the Arabization policy in the 1970s, the Iraqi Ba'ath government changed the village name to Hamdaniyya, naming it after the Arab tribe of "Banu Hamdan", who ruled Mosul in the middle ages.