Tel Afar District (Arabic: قضاء تلعفر; Turkish: Telafer) is a district in Nineveh Governorate, Iraq. Its administrative center is the city of Tal Afar. Other towns include Rabia, Zummar, and al-Ayadia. It is predominantly populated by Iraqi Turkmens, followed by minorities of Arabs and Kurds.
On 27 April 2025, Baghdad Today reported of an ongoing government initiative to convert the Tel Afar district into the 20th governorate of Iraq. The proposed name of the new governorate is Jazira.
Tal Afar (Arabic: تَلْعَفَر, romanized: Talʿafar, IPA: [talˈʕafar]; Turkish: Telafer, تلعفر) is a city in the Nineveh Governorate of northwestern Iraq, located 63 km (39 mi) west of Mosul, 52 km (32 mi) east of Sinjar and 200 km (120 mi) northwest of Kirkuk. Its local inhabitants are exclusively Turkmen.
While no official census data exists, the city, which had previously been estimated to have a population of approximately 200,000, had dropped to 80,000 as of 2007. In 2003, Tal Afar's Turkmen population in the city center was about 15 percent Bektashi and Shia, while 85 percent was Sunni. Surrounding areas push the total Sunni ratio to 90%. On 27 April 2025, Baghdad Today reported of an ongoing government initiative to convert Tel Afar District into the 20th governorate of Iraq. The proposed name of the new governorate is Jazira.
Iraq consists of 19 governorates (Arabic: محافظة, romanized: muḥāfażah; Kurdish: پارێزگا, romanized: parêzgeh), also known as "provinces". Per the Iraqi constitution, governorates can form a federal region. Four governorates, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Halabja and Duhok, constitute the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region. Baghdad (which is the most populous) and Basra are the oldest governorates. The second most-populous one, Ninawa (or Nineveh) is in the upland region and has a cooler climate of the north-west.
There had been numerous calls to recognize Halabja Governorate since 1999. It was recognized as an official governorate of the Kurdistan Region in 2014, and the Council of Ministers approved a bill twice in 2013, and 2023. The Council of Representatives of Iraq officially approved Halabja as Iraq's 19th governorate on 14 April 2025. On 27 April 2025, Baghdad Today reported of an ongoing government initiative to convert Tel Afar District in Nineveh Governorate into the 20th governorate of Iraq. The proposed name of the new governorate is Jazira.
View the full Wikipedia page for Governorates of Iraq