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Description
Often described as one of the largest national communities in the world without their own state, the Kurds, numbering somewhere between 25 and 30 million, are a very distinct community, with its own language, history and traditions. Nonetheless, their ethnic identity has been for a long time denied by their major neighbors, the Arabs, the Turks and the Persians. Without their own state, the Kurds have seen Kurdistan, « the land of the Kurds », divided mainly between these neighbors (the present-day states of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran).

The Kurdish nation originated from the ancient communities indigenous to the Mesopotamia and Western Iran. A predominant Muslim people, the Kurds speak a Northwestern Iranian language and are concentrated today mostly in the Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq and Syria, Western and Northeastern Iran, with smaller enclaves lying within the present-day borders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and a large diaspora in Western Europe.
The Golden Age of the Kurdish history is placed in the 12th and 13th centuries, during the Ayyubid dynasty, a Muslim dynasty centered in Egypt, founded by the most illustrious Kurdish national, Saladin. Territorially, the small Kurdish principalities and tribes have been part of the various Muslim empires (Abbasid Caliphate, Safavid Persia, etc.) and most of the Kurdish lands have been finally annexed by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Some smaller parts (in Caucasus and Central Asia) have been occupied by the Russian Empire in the 19th century and others remained under Persian sovereignty.

After centuries of foreign domination, the Kurdish communities in the Ottoman and the Persian Empires have expressed a surprising cultural and political regeneration at the beginning of the 20th century, after the First World War.

Description
Often described as one of the largest national communities in the world without their own state, the Kurds, numbering somewhere between 25 and 30 million, are a very distinct community, with its own language, history and traditions. Nonetheless, their ethnic identity has been for a long time denied by their major neighbors, the Arabs, the Turks and the Persians. Without their own state, the Kurds have seen Kurdistan, « the land of the Kurds », divided mainly between these neighbors (the present-day states of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran).

The Kurdish nation originated from the ancient communities indigenous to the Mesopotamia and Western Iran. A predominant Muslim people, the Kurds speak a Northwestern Iranian language and are concentrated today mostly in the Eastern Turkey, Northern Iraq and Syria, Western and Northeastern Iran, with smaller enclaves lying within the present-day borders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and a large diaspora in Western Europe.
The Golden Age of the Kurdish history is placed in the 12th and 13th centuries, during the Ayyubid dynasty, a Muslim dynasty centered in Egypt, founded by the most illustrious Kurdish national, Saladin. Territorially, the small Kurdish principalities and tribes have been part of the various Muslim empires (Abbasid Caliphate, Safavid Persia, etc.) and most of the Kurdish lands have been finally annexed by the Ottomans in the 16th century. Some smaller parts (in Caucasus and Central Asia) have been occupied by the Russian Empire in the 19th century and others remained under Persian sovereignty.

After centuries of foreign domination, the Kurdish communities in the Ottoman and the Persian Empires have expressed a surprising cultural and political regeneration at the beginning of the 20th century, after the First World War.