<sod>'''Van''' ({{lang-hy|Վան}}; {{lang-ku|Wan}}; {{lang-ota|فان}}) is a city in eastern [[Turkey]]'s [[Van Province]], located on the eastern shore of [[Lake Van]]. The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as the capital of [[Urartu]] in the 9th century BC and later as the center of the Armenian Kingdom of [[Vaspurakan]]. It remained an important center of Armenian culture until the [[Armenian Genocide]] of 1915. Today, Van has a [[Kurdish people|Kurdish]] majority and a sizable [[Turkish people|Turkish]] minority.<ref name="Ozoglu">{{cite journal|title=State&ndash;Tribe Relations: Kurdish Tribalism in the 16th-and 17th-Century Ottoman Empire|last=Özoğlu |first=Hakan|work=British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies|volume=23 |issue=1|date=May 1996|pages=5&ndash;27|publisher=Taylor & Francis|subscription=y|accessdate=2012-03-21}}</ref><eod>
<sod>'''Van''' ({{lang-hy|Վան}}; {{lang-ku|Wan}}; {{lang-ota|فان}}) is a city in eastern [[Turkey]]'s [[Van Province]], located on the eastern shore of [[Lake Van]]. The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as the capital of [[Urartu]] in the 9th century BC and later as the center of the Armenian Kingdom of [[Vaspurakan]].<ref name="Ozoglu">{{cite journal|title=State&ndash;Tribe Relations: Kurdish Tribalism in the 16th-and 17th-Century Ottoman Empire|last=Özoğlu |first=Hakan|work=British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies|volume=23 |issue=1|date=May 1996|pages=5&ndash;27|publisher=Taylor & Francis|subscription=y|accessdate=2012-03-21}}</ref><eod>