Kurdistan Autonomous Region

The Kurdistan Autonomous Region (Kurdish: Herêma Xweser a Kurdistanê; Arabic: منطقة كُردستان الذاتية minṭaqat kurdistān adh-dhātīyah), informally East Kurdistan (Rojhilata Kurdistanê; كُردستان الشرق kurdistān ash-sharq), is the only autonomous region of the Arab Union and one of only two administrative jurisdictions at the same administrative level as the 20 republics (federated states) of the Arab Union not possessing equal sovereignty with the federal government but rather a devolved form of autonomy along the same lines as Nasseria, the federal capital of the Arab Union. Located in the northeast of the country, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region borders the Iraqi Arab Republic to the south and the Syrian Arab Republic to the west; it also shares international borders with Turkey to the north and Iran to the east.

The capital and largest city of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region is Erbil. The Kurdistan Autonomous Region is home to a population of approximately 7.48 million, about 75% of whom are ethnic Kurds, 10% Arabs, 7% Armenians, 5% Persians, and the remaining 3% representing migrant workers (about two-thirds originating from the Indian subcontinent and most of the remaining third (1%) from Maritime Southeast Asia).

Unlike the 20 republics of the Arab Union, the Kurdistan Autonomous Region's devolved authority can theoretically be dissolved unilaterally by the Arab Congress; in practice, howevere, the region has more or less the same level of autonomy as the republics, with the Kurdistan Autonomous Government functioning in much the same manner as a governorate (republican-level government), its ministries and agencies responsible for the same scope of public administration as republican governments' ministries. In fact, in some areas the Kurdistan Autonomous Region experiences greater autonomy and self-direction than the republics, a prime example of this being in education: while in the rest of the Arab Union, public education is overseen by the federal Ministry of Education, in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region, which uses the Kurdish language rather than Arabic in public education, it is instead separately administered by the Kurdistan Public Education Authority, which creates and oversees its own curriculum as opposed to the uniformity imposed elsewhere in the country.