Diyarbakır's history was long thought to reach back to 3000 BC. The excavations at Çayönü changed that: the work there established that civilisation in this province goes back to around 7500 BC. Hurrians, Mitanni, Hittites, Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Alexander, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Seljuks and Ottomans have all ruled in and around the city since.
Until recently the name Diyarbakır belonged to a region, not a city. That region ran far beyond the modern provincial centre. To the south and east it took in Mardin, Nusaybin and Cizre, and reached across today's border to Sinjar, Amadiya and Erbil. Westward it covered Urfa and Harran, Ceylanpınar and Raqqa on the Euphrates. Nearer at hand it included Silvan, Hani, Erzen, Hasankeyf on the Tigris, the crossing at Habur, and Siirt to the east.
