[7] The original settlement may have been on a small island in the Little Khabur river, which flows west through the modern city to form the border between Iraq and Turkey, continuing into the Tigris.

From the late 19th century onwards, the family of Shamdin Agha ruled "all the Muslims, Jews and Christians of Zakho and its surroundings.

In 1844, the traveller William Francis Ainsworth commented: "The appearance of Zakho in the present day coincides in a remarkable manner with what it was described to be in the time of Xenophon."

Zakho is a major marketplace with its goods and merchandise serving the Kurdish-controlled area and most of north and central Iraq.

described the town as a great trading centre, famous for its gallnuts as well as rice, oil, sesame, wax, lentils and many fruits.

The river forms the approximate political boundary of Kurdistan Regional Government area of Iraq today.

In 1991, Zakho was the centre of the haven established by the British and the Americans in Operation Provide Comfort to protect the Iraqi Kurds from being massacred by Saddam Hussein when he responded brutally to the Kurdish rebellion.

According to David McDowall, this constituted a sudden brain drain, with Zakho losing many of its most educated citizens.

[15] In 2008 it was reported that the Turkish Army maintained four bases in Zakho District, under an agreement concluded with the Iraqi Government in the 1990s.

[16] The 2011 Dohuk riots, which targeted Assyrian-owned businesses, were sparked by Kurdish Muslim clerics in the town.

The Jews spoke the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Zakho and were also fluent in Kurmanji, the language spoken by non-Jewish Kurds.

[30] In 2007, the UNHCR reported that there were still 10,000 internally displaced persons in the Zakho district as a result of the Iraq War.