Tal Afar

Tal Afar (Arabic: تَلْعَفَر, romanized: Talʿafar, IPA: [talˈʕafar]; Turkish: Telafer, تلعفر) is a city in the Nineveh Governorate of northwestern Iraq, located 63 km (39 mi) west of Mosul, 52 km (32 mi) east of Sinjar and 200 km (120 mi) northwest of Kirkuk. Its local inhabitants are exclusively Turkmens.

While no official census data exists, the city, which had previously been estimated to have a population of approximately 200,000, had dropped to 80,000 as of 2007. In 2003, Tal Afar's Turkmen population in the city center was about 85 percent Shia, while 15 percent was Sunni. On 27 April 2025, Baghdad Today reported of an ongoing government initiative to convert Tal Afar District into the 20th governorate of Iraq. The proposed name of the new governorate is Jazira.