Afrin Region

The western, mountainous part of the Afrin Region was overwhelmingly ethnic Kurdish, to the degree that the area was described as "homogeneously Kurdish". The central and eastern parts of the Afrin Region had a highly diverse ethnic population, consisting of Arab Syrians and Arabized Kurds found throughout the area, as well as considerable Circassian and Chechen populations in the city of Manbij and considerable Syrian Turkmen and Arabized Turkmen populations toward the north of the area. A smaller minority consisted of Armenians. Toponymy and maps published by the French colonial authorities indicated that a significant percentage of inhabitants of this area who were officially classified as Arabs actually had Kurdish origins.

Manbij and Tell Rifaat were the largest cities administered by de facto autonomous civil administrations operating under the umbrella of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. According to the 2004 Syrian census, Manbij had 99,497 inhabitants, and Tell Rifaat had 20,514.

The Afrin region area had seen human settlement since the early Neolithic.

According to René Dussaud, the region of Kurd-Dagh and the plain near Antioch had been settled by Kurds since antiquity. Stefan Sperl stated that there was reason to believe that Kurdish settlements in the Kurd Mountains went back to the Seleucid era, since those regions stood in the path to Antioch; Kurds in the early periods served as mercenaries and mounted archers. In any case, the Kurd Mountains were already Kurdish-inhabited when the Crusades broke out at the end of the 11th century.

In Classical Antiquity, the region was part of Chalybonitis (with its center at Chalybon or Aleppo), Chalcidice (with its center at Qinnasrīn العيس), and Cyrrhestica (with its center at Cyrrhus النبي حوري). This area was one of the most fertile and populated parts of the region. Under the Romans, the region was made part of the province of Coele Syria or Magna Syria in 193 CE, which was ruled from Antioch. The province of Euphratensis was established in the east in the 4th century CE, with its center at Hierapolis Bambyce (Manbij), which remained the main city of the region.

Under the Rashidun and Umayyad Muslim dynasties, the region was part of the Jund Qinnasrīn. In the Abbasid period, the region was under the independent rule of the Hamdanids. The Mamluks and later the Ottomans governed the area until 1918. During the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), the region was part of the Vilayet of Aleppo. The largest of the Kurdish-speaking tribal groups in northern Syria was the Reshwan confederation, which was initially based in Adıyaman Province but eventually also settled throughout Anatolia. The Milli confederation, mentioned from 1518 onward, was the most powerful group and dominated the entire northern Syrian steppe in the second half of the 18th century. The Kurdish dynasty of Janbulad ruled the region of Aleppo as Ottoman governors from 1591 to 1607. At the beginning of the 17th century, the districts of Jarabulus and Seruj on the left bank of the Euphrates had been settled by Kurds.

During the French Mandate, the region was part of the brief State of Aleppo. In modern post-independence Syria, the Kurdish society of the region was subject to heavy-handed Arabization policies by the Damascus government.

In the course of the Syrian Civil War, Damascus government forces pulled back from the region in spring 2012, giving way to autonomous self-administration within the Rojava framework, which was formally declared on 29 January 2014. The territory of Afrin Region virtually never saw civil war combat. It was, however, at various times the target of artillery shelling by Islamist rebel groups as well as by Turkey. In response, Russian military troops reportedly stationed themselves in Afrin as part of an agreement to protect the YPG from further Turkish attacks.

Decline and fall

In early 2018, Afrin and the surrounding areas were occupied by Turkish-backed forces. Since then, the Turkish-backed forces were accused of human rights violations by the human rights commissioner to the United Nations, Michelle Bachelet.

During the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, the remaining areas of the Afrin Region were captured by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.

According to the Constitution of Rojava, Afrin Region's Legislative Assembly declared autonomy during its session on 29 January 2014. The assembly elected Hêvî Îbrahîm Mustefa as prime minister, who appointed Remzi Şêxmus and Ebdil Hemid Mistefa as her deputies.

The remaining Executive Council was appointed as follows:

Afrin was well known for its olive groves. The areas governed by the SDC were under a blockade imposed by neighbouring Turkey, which placed high burdens on international imports and exports. For example, transportation of Aleppo soap to international markets, where possible, cost at least four times as much as it had before the war. In 2015, 32 tons of Aleppo soap were produced and exported to other parts of Syria, as well as to international markets.

Like in the other Rojava regions, primary education in the public schools was initially provided through mother-tongue instruction, either in Kurdish or Arabic, with the aim of achieving bilingualism in Kurdish and Arabic by secondary schooling. Curricula were a topic of continuous debate between the regions' Boards of Education and the Syrian central government in Damascus, which partly paid the teachers.

The federal, regional, and local administrations in Rojava placed much emphasis on promoting libraries and educational centers to facilitate learning and social and artistic activities.

Afrin Region had institutions of higher education. Most notably, it previously had the University of Afrin, which was founded in 2015. After teaching three programs (Electromechanical Engineering, Kurdish Literature, and Economy) in the first academic year, the university's second academic year had 22 professors and 250 students and offered three additional programs (Human Medicine, Journalism, and Agricultural Engineering).