Turkmeneli

Turkmeneli, meaning Land of the Turkmens in Turkish, is a name for the stretch of territory in which the Iraqi Turkmens live. It is also called Turkmenland, and in older usage Turcomania or East Turkmeneli, the last to set it apart from a Syrian Turkmen homeland sometimes called West Turkmeneli. The term runs from the Iraqi border with Turkey and Syria diagonally down the country towards the border with Iran. Turkmen tradition treats Kirkuk as its capital and includes places such as Tal Afar, Mosul, Erbil, Mandali and Tuz Khurmatu. The name appears on a 1785 map by William Guthrie as Turcomania, but little published use is known until the Iraqi Turkmen Front was founded, and maps drawn by that organisation have been described as controversial and exaggerated. It is a political and cultural claim rather than an administrative unit of Iraq, and proposals for an autonomous Turkmen area have varied in extent.