Erbil

The mound at the centre of Erbil has been built on for perhaps six or seven thousand years, each settlement raising the level of the next, which is why the citadel now stands well above the plain. As Arbela it was a significant city of the Assyrian empire, famous for its temple of Ishtar, and it kept its importance under the Persians: the battle in which Alexander defeated Darius III in 331 BC, fought some way to the west, is often called the Battle of Arbela. Under the Parthians it was the seat of a small kingdom, Adiabene, whose ruling family converted to Judaism, and it later became an early and important centre of the Church of the East.

Arab armies took the city in the 7th century. Its best-remembered medieval ruler is the atabeg Muzaffar al-Din Gökböri, a brother-in-law and ally of Saladin, who governed from the late 12th century, built outside the walls and is credited with developing the public celebration of the Prophet's birthday; the Mudhafaria Minaret survives from his time. The Mongols sacked the city in the 13th century, and afterwards it declined into a provincial town under Ottoman rule.

Modern Erbil grew after Iraq's formation, and became the seat of the Kurdistan Regional Government after the Kurds gained self-rule in the 1990s. The 1990s also brought fighting between the two main Kurdish parties. From 2003 the city boomed: oil money, foreign companies and construction filled the ring roads with towers, malls and compounds, while the citadel above was emptied of its residents in 2007 for a restoration project. The war against the Islamic State from 2014 filled the city with displaced Iraqis and Syrian refugees, about 118,000 of the former at one point. UNESCO inscribed the citadel as a World Heritage Site in 2014.

Erbil is a Kurdish city that has long held other communities: Turkmen families in the old quarters, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians in Ankawa, and Arab Iraqis who came north for work or safety. The everyday language is Sorani Kurdish, written in the Arabic script; Arabic and English are common in business. Most people are Sunni Muslims, generally undemonstrative about it, and the city is politically dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Barzani family.

The calendar turns on Newroz, the new year on 21 March, when bonfires are lit on the hills, families drive out to the countryside and dancers form the halparke, a line dance led by a handkerchief. Traditional dress appears at weddings and festivals: for men the shal u shapik, a jacket and gathered trousers gathered by a wide sash, and for women long bright dresses with sequins. Weddings are large, public and loud, with convoys of cars and dancing that spills into the street.

Daily sociability happens in the tea houses of the bazaar, where men sit over small glasses of sweet tea, dominoes and backgammon, and in the parks in the evening, where whole families gather to eat sunflower seeds and let children run until late. Picnics are close to a national pastime, and any Friday in spring empties the city towards the mountains. Erbil is conservative in dress and manners but easy-going with visitors, and hospitality — tea first, questions later — is a matter of pride.

Well over a million people live in Erbil and its suburbs, and the city has grown rapidly since 2003, both from the oil boom and from waves of displaced Iraqis and Syrians. Growth shows in the plan: the old core around the citadel is ringed by successive boulevards, and beyond them lie villa compounds, apartment towers and malls built in the boom years, some of them left unfinished when money tightened.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is the largest employer, and public salaries — and the disputes with Baghdad over oil sales and the budget that repeatedly delay them — are a constant subject. Oil, construction, trade with Turkey and Iran, telecoms and domestic tourism from the rest of Iraq make up much of the rest of the economy. Foreign consulates, companies and aid organisations have a substantial presence, many of them in Ankawa.

The day starts early, the bazaar is busiest in the morning, and the middle of a summer afternoon empties the streets. Life resumes after dark, when the parks, restaurants and malls fill and traffic thickens. Electricity comes from a mix of public supply and neighbourhood generators, and water shortages are a worry as the region's rainfall becomes less reliable. Young people complain about jobs, housing costs and the pull of emigration, and many families have relatives abroad.

Erbil's cooking is Kurdish, with a strong Iraqi and Turkish accent. Dolma is the dish families are proudest of: vine leaves, aubergines, peppers, onions and courgettes stuffed with spiced rice and meat, packed into a pot and cooked in a sour sauce. Quzi, lamb cooked until it falls from the bone and set over rice with almonds and raisins, is the food of guests and weddings, and biryani here means rice with meat, noodles, nuts and raisins rather than the South Asian dish.

Grilled meat is everywhere: kebab of minced lamb pressed onto skewers, tikka of cubed meat, and whole lamb ribs, served with flat bread from a clay oven, raw onion, tomatoes and sumac. Soups and stews carry the winter — lentil soup, beans, okra, and sour dishes sharpened with dried black lime. Kubba, shells of bulgur or rice around spiced meat, come fried or in soup. Breakfast is bread with honey, white cheese, eggs, and geymar, the thick buffalo-milk cream, with date syrup.

To drink there is tea, strong and very sweet in small waisted istikan glasses, served all day; mastaw, salted yoghurt thinned with water; and cardamom coffee for guests. The hills supply honey, walnuts, pomegranates and figs, sold in the bazaar along with pressed fruit rolls and nut sweets. In Ankawa arak and beer are sold openly, which is not the case in most of the city.