Sonqor

Sonqor (; ; also known as Sanghūr and Sūnqūr,) is a city in the Central District of Sonqor County, Kermanshah province, Iran, and serves as both capital of the county and of the district. It is in the Zagros Mountains, about 90 kilometers from the province's capital city Kermanshah, and consists of two valleys; that of Gavehrud and Shajarud. Sonqor lies between the modern cities of Kangavar and Sanandaj. At the 2006 National Census, its population was 43,184 in 11,377 households. The following census in 2011 counted 44,954 people in 13,228 households. The latest census in 2016 showed a population of 44,256 people in 13,996 households. Etymology The name Sonqor may derive from the Turkic chief Sonqor, a vassal of the Mongols of Shiraz in Fars, who had arrived in the region with his men during the Mongol occupation of Iran. Geography and history In medieval Iran, Sonqor was situated on the road that ran between Dinavar and Adharbaydjan. The orientalist Vladimir Minorsky (died 1966) argued that Sonqor must have therefore corresponded approximately to the first marḥala on the stretch from Dinavar to Sisar, the name of which is recorded as al-Djarba by Al-Maqdisi (died 991) and as Kharbadjan by Ibn Khordadbeh, and was 7 farsakhs from Dinavar. The present-day distance between the ruins of Dinavar and Sonqor however, is not more than 24 kilometers. Based on these arguments, Sonqor might have therefore corresponded to the medieval district of Maybahradj as noted by Al-Baladhuri (died 892), which was separated from Dinavar under Abbasid Caliph Al-Mahdi (775–785) and joined to Sisar.