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The Citadel, or Hawler Castle, sits on a low hill top surrounded by modern day Erbil located in Iraqi Kurdistan. Origonally settled as early as 5000BC (7000 years ago) the Citadel and has been held by the Sumerian, Assyrian, Sassanid, Mongol, Christan, and Ottoman empires and was home to as many as 1600 residents in 1995 (last census).
In 2010 the Kurdish goverment, with assistance from neighboring countries, started the process of moving out all the residents and starting renovations with a budget of $14 million, as 2014 the site was declared a UNESCO World Haritage site.
Today you are welcome to visit and wander around the Citadel freely and visit a couple of shops, museums, or mosqus that are still there but unfortunatly much of the Citadel is currently closed off due to ongoing renovations.
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