Kurdistan borders Turkey, Iran and Syria. The regional capital is Erbil or in Kurdish, Hawler. The region is officially governed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The establishment of the Kurdistan region dates back to 1970. In March 1970 an autonomy agreement was signed with Baghdad that declared autonomy for the region, after years of heavy fighting. The Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s and the Anfal genocide campaign of the Iraqi army devastated the population and nature of Iraqi Kurdistan. Following the 1991 uprising of the Kurdish people against Saddam Hussein, many Kurds were forced to flee the country to become refugees in bordering regions of Iran and Turkey A northern no-fly zone following the First Gulf War in 1991 to facilitate the return of Kurdish refugees was established. As Kurds continued to fight government troops, Iraqi forces finally left Kurdistan in October 1991 leaving the region to function de facto independently; however, neither of the two major Kurdish parties had at any time declared independence and Iraqi Kurdistan continues to view itself as an integral part of a united Iraq but one in which it administers its own affairs. The 2003 invasion of Iraq by joint coalition and Kurdish forces and the subsequent political changes in post-Saddam Iraq led to the ratification of the new Iraqi constitution in 2005. The new Iraqi constitution stipulates that Iraqi Kurdistan is a federal entity recognized by Iraq, and gives Kurdish joint official language status in all of Iraq, and sole official language status in Iraqi Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is a parliamentary democracy with a national assembly that consists of 111 seats. The current president is H.E. Massoud Barzani, who was initially elected during the Iraqi Kurdistan elections in 2005, and re-elected during the 2009 Iraqi Kurdistan elections. The three governorates of Duhuk, Erbil and As Sulaymaniah accumulate a territory of around 40,000 square kilometers and have a population of around 5 million. Disputes remain between the central Iraqi government and the Kurdish government about predominantly Kurdish territories outside the current borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. #دهوك_زاخو_سليماني_ئاكري_ئامیدی_هولیر #kurdistan #kurd #welcometokurdista #kurdish - @reez4n