Kurdistan is the historic homeland of the Kurds, a people of roughly 30 to 40 million spread across the mountains and plains where Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran meet. Kurds speak a family of closely related languages — Kurmanji, Sorani, Southern Kurdish, Zazaki and Gorani among them — and share a culture shaped by the mountains: Newroz fires in March, the dengbêj tradition of sung storytelling, the dance lines of the govend, and a long literary history from Ehmedê Xanî to today’s poets and film-makers.
Because the borders drawn after the First World War divided the Kurdish lands between four states, Kurds describe their homeland in four parts, named by the points of the compass in Kurdish:
- Bakûrê Kurdistanê — the north, in Turkey
- Rojavayê Kurdistanê — the west, in Syria
- Başûrê Kurdistanê — the south, in Iraq
- Rojhilatê Kurdistanê — the east, in Iran
Beyond these four parts, a large diaspora lives in Europe, North America and Australia, and older Kurdish communities remain in Armenia, Georgia, Lebanon and Khorasan in north-eastern Iran. Kurdistan.fm broadcasts to all of them — in English, so that the next generation growing up abroad, and anyone curious about the Kurds, can listen in.