Qaraqosh (Syriac: ܩܪܩܘ݂ܫ, romanized: Qaraqoš; Arabic: بغديدا, romanized: Baḡdīda (official name), or Arabic: بخديدا, romanized: Baḵdīda, also known as al-Ḥamdāniyya or Qara-Qūš; a Turkic placename meaning "Black Bird") is an Assyrian[4] city in the Nineveh Governorate, of Iraq located about 32 kilometres (20 mi) southeast of the city of Mosul and 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Erbil amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Kalhu and Nineveh.

The town was under control of IS until October 19, 2016, when it was liberated as part of the Battle of Mosul after which residents have begun to return.

[5] Local Assyrians, who are ethnically distinct from Arabs and Kurds, speak the Qaraqosh dialect of Northeastern Neo-Aramaic.

[10] On May 2, 2010, a convoy of buses carrying students from Bakhdida to the University of Mosul was the target of a coordinated attack, which killed and injured more than a hundred.

[16] In their literature and writings, the Assyrians of Bakhdida remember vividly the raids of the Persians and Kurds on their village and churches.

[17] According to the 13th-century writer Bar Hebraeus, in 1261 the Kurds came down to Mosul, killing many Christians who refused to follow Islam and looting their homes and churches.

However, the Christians defended it and after months of blockade, the Persians finally signed a peace agreement with Mosul's governor Hasan Pasha Al Jalili, and withdrew in 1743.

[22] Due to the rise of extremism in Iraq shortly after the US-led invasion, many of the villagers in Mosul and Baghdad were targeted for being Christians.

The Kurdish Peshmerga and the Assyrian Qaraqosh Protection Committee successfully defended it, while elders, women, and children fled to neighboring towns, thus joining other Christian refugees from nearby Mosul that had previously escaped the city in fear of the extremists.

Throughout 1922, 1927, and 1935, archaeologists found gold pieces and cylinder seals, as well as an Assyrian statue (now in Mosul museum) in a well in the church of Mar Zina.

Furthermore, during the 1980s excavations in the grounds of the Church of Mar Youhanna (Saint John), archaeologists found human remains inside graves in the eastern side and at a depth of one and a half metres.

Mapharian Athanasius Ibrahim II of Tur Abdin visited Tikrit, Baghdad, and Arbil to attend to his congregation.

According to Afram Abdal al-Khouri and his book al-Lu'lu' al-Nadheed fi Tareekh Deir Mar Bihnam al-Shaheed[citation needed](The Layers of Pearls in the History of the Monastery of Martyred Mar Bihnam), 1951, p. 219, Sony writes: "in 1365 the Mapharian came to Athur or Mosul and was welcomed by Nour al-Din the Chief of Baghdeda … " (Sony 1998, 699).