Sinjar is the name of a town and district in northwestern Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

's Ninawa Governorate

Ninawa Governorate

Ninawa is a governorate in northern Iraq, and the Arabic name for the biblical city of Nineveh in Assyria. It has an area of and an estimated population of 2,453,000 people in 2003. Its chief city and provincial capital is Mosul, which lies across the Tigris river from the ruins of ancient...

 near the Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

n border. Its population at the time of the 2006 census was 39,875.

A huge mound and wall in northeastern Syria known as Tell Hamoukar indicate an urban civilisation dating back at least 6,000 years. The Sinjar valley belonged to the Northern Ubaid culture. In the Sinjar plain, where Tell Hamoukar is located, civilizations are known to have existed many centuries earlier (Hassuna

Hassuna

Hassuna or Tell Hassuna is an ancient Mesopotamian site situated in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq west of the Tigris river, south of Mosul and about 35 km southwest of Nineveh.-History:...

, Halaf, Ubaid). More than 200 sites are known.

Some sources mention the city as the birthplace of the Christian saint Abd-al-Masih.

Sinjar was also the site of the filming, and some of the plot, for the 1973 film The Exorcist

The Exorcist (film)

The Exorcist is a 1973 American horror film directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and based on the exorcism case of Robbie Mannheim, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her...

.