Saladin Governorate


The Saladin or Salah ad Din Governorate is a governorate in Iraq, north of Baghdad. The governorate has an area of. The estimated population in 2003 was 1,042,200 people. The capital is Tikrit; the governorate also contains the significantly larger city of Samarra. Before 1976 the governorate was part of Baghdad Governorate.
The province is named after leader Saladin, a Kurdish Muslim leader who defeated the Crusaders at Hattin, and who hailed from the province. Salah ad Din was the home province of Saddam Hussein; he was born in Al-Awja, a town near Tikrit.

Overview

Saladin Governorate contains a number of important religious and cultural sites. Samarra, the governorate's largest city, is home to both the Al-Askari Shrine, the Sardab where the 12th Imam al-Mahdi went into occultation, and the Great Mosque of Samarra with its distinctive Malwiya minaret. Samarra was also the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th century CE, and today Abbasid Samarra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The ancient Neo-Assyrian Empire Assyrian city of Assur is located in Al-Shirqat District on the banks of the Tigris River. Other sites in the governorate include the Crusader Dome north of Samarra and the Al-`Ashaq Palace.
In January 2014, there were plans to make Tuz Khurmatu, a district of Saladin Governorate, into a new governorate. However, these plans were announced by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and were not followed up by his successor, Haider al-Abadi, who replaced Maliki in August 2014.

Autonomy

In October 2011, the government in Saladin governorate declared itself a semi-autonomous region within Iraq. The government explained that the declaration was in response to the central government's "domination over the provincial council authorities". Saladin, which is a largely Sunni governorate, is also hoping that by declaring themselves an autonomous region within Iraq, it will entail them to a larger portion of government funding. The council cited "article 119 of Iraq's constitution" in its call for autonomy, which states that "one or more governorates shall have the right to organize into a region" if one third of the Provincial Council members or one tenth of the voters request to form a region".

Provincial government

The following table shows the populations of the districts of Saladin Governorate, according to the United Nations in 2003. No data is available for Dujail District.
DistrictSamarraTikritBaladBaijiAl-ShirqatAl-DaurToozTotal
Population348,700180,300107,600134,000121,50046,700103,4001,042,200