Mardin Province

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Map showing the location of Mardin Province of Turkey

View from Mardin to the Mesopotamian plains

The old town of Midyat, second city of the province

Mardin Province is a province of Turkey with a population of 835,173 (2000)[Population of Mardin province]. The capital of the Mardin Province is Mardin. Located near the traditional boundary of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, it has a diverse population with a Kurdish majority[Distribution of Kurdish People] — GlobalSecurity.org and significant minorities of Arabs, Syriacs and Turks.

The local Syriac Christian community, while much reduced, supports two of the oldest monasteries in the world, Dayro d-Mor Hananyo (Turkish Deyrülzafaran, English Saffron Monastery) and Dayro d-Mor Gabriel. The Christian community is concentrated on the Tur Abdin plateau and in the town of Midyat, with a smaller community (approximately 100) in the provincial capital.

Politically the area is competitive between the governing moderate-Islamist Justice and Development Party and Kurdish nationalist Democratic People's Party, and the True Path Party has some strength, especially in rural parts of the province.[Local election results, 2004] The area was the scene of bitter fighting between the Turkish Army and the Kurdistan Workers' Party for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

Unemployment and poverty are serious problems, and there has been considerable out migration to western and southern Turkey, although the reduction in political violence, coupled with infrastructure improvements such as a new civil airport at the provincial capital and improvements to the Ankara-Baghdad highway are helping ameliorate matters.

Mardin is an Aramaic word (ܡܶܪܕܺܝܢ) and means "fortresses".

References

External links

	Districts of Mardin
Mardin \| Dargeçit \| Derik \| Kızıltepe \| Mazıdağı \| Midyat \| Nusaybin \| Ömerli \| Savur \| Yeşilli

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