Introduction to Kurds: Kurdish lands, rich in natural resources, have always sustained and promoted a large population. While registering modest gains since the late 19th century, but particularly in the first decade of the 20th, Kurds lost demographic ground relative to neighboring ethnic groups. This was due as much to their less developed economy and health care system as it was to direct massacres, deportations, famines, etc. The total number of Kurds actually decreased in this period, while every other major ethnic group in the area boomed. Since the middle of the 1960s this negative demographic trend has reversed