Qaraqosh

Qaraqosh ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ
A view of Bakhdida
Qaraqosh Location within Iraq
Coordinates: 36°16′11″N 43°22′39″E
Country	Iraq
Governorate	Nineveh
Municipality	Al-Hamdaniya District
Government
• Mayor	Isam Behnam Da'aboul
Population
• Total	35,000 (current)
	50,000 (prior to IS invasion)
Time zone	UTC+3 (Arabia Standard Time)

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Qaraqosh (Syriac: ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ, romanized: Qaraqoš; Arabic: بغديدا, romanized: Baḡdīda (official name), or Arabic: بخديدا, romanized: Baḵdīda, also known as al-Ḥamdāniyya or Qara-Qūš; a Turkic placename meaning "Black Bird") is a city in the Nineveh Governorate, of Iraq located about 32 kilometres (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Kalhu and Nineveh. The city has an Assyrian Christian majority.

Qaraqosh is connected to the main city of Mosul by two main roads. The first runs through the Assyrian towns of Bartella and Karamlesh, which connects to the city of Erbil as well. The second, which was gravel before being paved in the 1990s, is direct to Mosul. All of its Assyrian Christian citizens fled to the Kurdistan Region after the IS invasion on August 6, 2014. The town was under control of IS until October 19, 2016, when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul after which residents have begun to return. According to archbishop Nizar Semaan, by July 2024 about half of the city's original 50,000 residents had returned to Qaraqosh.

Local Assyrians, who are ethnically distinct from Arabs and Kurds, speak the Qaraqosh dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic.