Hakkâri is a city in the far southeast of Turkey. The name Hakkâri comes from the Aramaic Akkare (ܐܟܪ̈ܐ) because of its Assyrian indigenous population, meaning 'farmers'. Today the city has a population of 58,145 (2000 census) and is the capital of Hakkâri Province.
Hakkâri is the site of Julamerk (also Julamerik, Colemerq, Çölemerik), in the 19th century an independent Chiefship in the mountains of Kurdistan, in the hands of local Kurdish emirs such as Nurullah Bey, long after the surrounding area had come under Ottoman control. The name was changed from Colemêrg to Hakkâri when the Ottoman rulers distributed parts of the area to Kurdish elites who were part of the Hakkâri tribe and appointed several of them to rule the region.
Today no Assyrians are left in Hakkari. All its churches are empty, and the last residents fled last century to mainly Iraq due to persecution from Muslim neighbours.
