The province has been ruled by the Akkadians, Hurrians, Mittani, Medes, Hittites, Armenians, Arameans, Neo-Babylonians, Achaemenids, Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Byzantium, Sassanids, Arabs, Seljuk Empire, Mongol Empire, Safavid dynasty, Marwanids, and Ayyubids.

[11] During the 1930s, several place-names in the province were renamed into names which denoted a Turkish origin as part of the nationalist Turkification policy of the Kemalist government.

From 1987 to 2002, Diyarbakır Province was part of the OHAL (state of emergency) region which was declared to counter the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and governed by a so-called Supergovernor who got invested with additional powers than a normal Governor.

[14] Archaeologists headed by the vice-rector of Dicle University, professor Ahmet Tanyıldız, have claimed to discover the graves of the Seljuk Sultan of Rum Kilij Arslan I, who defeated the Crusaders.

Researchers dug 2 meters deep across a 35-square-meter area and focused their works on two gravesites in Orta Çeşme Park.