various reasons, had left their homes and had found refuge in Syria. The French authorities themselves generally organized the settlement of the refugees. One of the most important of these plans was carried out in Upper Jazira in northeastern Syria where the French built new towns and villages (such as Qamishli) were built with the intention of housing the refugees considered to be “friendly”. This has encouraged the non-Turkish minorities that were under Turkish pressure to leave their ancestral homes and property, they could find refuge and rebuild their lives in relative safety in neighboring Syria. Consequently, the border areas in al-Hasakah Governorate started to have a Kurdish majority, while Arabs remained the majority in river plains and elsewhere. In 1939, French mandate authorities reported the following population numbers for the different ethnic and religious groups in al-Hasakah governorate. The population of the governorate reached 155,643 in 1949, including about 60,000 Kurds. These continuous waves swelled the number of Kurds in the area who represented 30% of the Jazira population in a 1939 French authorities census. In 1953, French geographers Fevret and Gibert estimated that out of the total 146,000 inhabitants of Jazira, agriculturalist Kurds made up 60,000 (41%), semi-sedentary and nomad Arabs 50,000 (34%), and a quarter of the population were Christians. Censuses of 1943 and 1953 Among the Sunni Muslims, mostly Kurds and Arabs, there were about 1,500 Circassians in 1938. Current demographics The inhabitants of al-Hasakah governorate are composed of different ethnic and cultural groups, the larger groups being Arabs and Kurds in addition to a significant large number of Assyrians and a smaller number of Armenians. The population of the governorate, according to the country's official census, was 1,275,118, and was estimated to be 1,377,000 in 2007, and 1,512,000 in 2011. According to the National Association of Arab Youth, there are 1717 villages in Al-Hasakah province: 1161 Arab villages, 453 Kurdish villages, 98 Assyrian villages and 53 with mixed populations from the aforementioned ethnicities. Today, Arabs comprise the largest demographic group and mostly live in the city of al-Hasaka and its south and east countryside, with smaller presence in the north and west countryside. Kurds are the second largest group, with thousands living in villages and towns in the north, northeast, and northwest countryside. Assyrians live mostly in the north and northeast regions of al-Hasaka, especially in Tell Tamer but also in Qamishli and al-Malikiyah.In 2013