KIRMANSHAH

Kirmanshah,Iran, is a city and also the name of one of the two Iranian provinces containing a Kurdish majority. The province's population of more than 1.5 million people is approximately equally divided among Shia, Sunni, andAhl-i HaqqKurds.Guraniand various southeastern Kurdish dialects often called Kirmanshani are spoken in Kirmanshah. Principaltribesinclude the Guran,Kalhur, Jawanrud, and Sanjabi. The famous Behistun inscriptions—a cuneiform text, the decipherment of which was the key to all cuneiform script in ancient Mesopotamia—are near the city of Kirmanshah.