Hasankeyf is an ancient town and district located along the Tigris

Tigris

The Tigris River is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq.-Geography:...

 River in the Batman

Batman Province

Batman Province is a Turkish province southeast of Anatolia. The province's population exceeded 500,000 in 2010.The province is important because of its reserves and production of oil which was started in the 1940s. There is a 494-km long oil pipeline from Batman to the Turkish port of İskenderun....

 Province

Provinces of Turkey

Turkey is divided into 81 provinces, called il in Turkish .A province is administered by an appointed governor , and was formerly termed a "governorate" ....

 in southeastern Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

. It was declared a natural conservation area

Conservation area

A conservation areas is a tract of land that has been awarded protected status in order to ensure that natural features, cultural heritage or biota are safeguarded...

 by Turkey in 1981. Predominantly Arab before, a steady and significant Kurdish immigration from surrounding villages in the last 20-30 years has shifted the ethnic balance. Kurdish people

Kurdish people

The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

 form the majority of the city center today.

Much of the city and its archeological sites are at risk of being flooded with the completion of the Ilisu Dam

Ilisu Dam

The Ilisu Dam is an embankment dam under construction on the Tigris River near the village of Ilisu and along the border of Mardin and Sirnak Provinces in Turkey. It is one of the 22 dams of the Southeastern Anatolia Project and its purpose is hydroelectric power production, flood control and...

.
Hasankeyf is an ancient city, and has been identified with the Ilanṣura of the Mari Tablet (c.