According to a Kurdish proverb, ‘Damascus is all sugar, but one's homeland is sweeter.’ Attachment to land is a powerful element of identity and source of legitimation. Readily apparent in discussion and debate among Kurds is an insistence on highlighting the historical continuity of the Kurdish presence in and connection to the lands they live in (which extend beyond Turkey into Iran, Iraq and northern Syria). Christopher Houston links this to Kurdish attempts at nation building, albeit in circumstances where the Kurds lack a state of their own. Houston remarks that such brandishing of historical validation narratives is standard practice across the Middle East, a way of using the past as a ‘key political resource in the present’. Anthony Smith notes ‘an association with a specific “homeland’’’ as one of his attributes of ethnie. Many Kurds demonstrate a strong connection to a home town, even among those who have migrated to larger cities due to disruption or to seek economic opportunities. This may be seen as an ‘objective’ aspect of identity, in that these sites relate to something ‘tangible’, the places where Kurds currently live and have done so throughout history.

Yet the delineation of a homeland or claiming of a territory must also be subjective. Different peoples may construe landscapes in different ways, and may, indeed, make competing claims over territory. The Republic of Turkey sees Diyarbakır and Anatolia's south-east as intrinsic parts of its sovereign territory even though relatively few ethnic Turks would look upon these as homeland/home town.5 Kurds, on the other hand, can point to the southeastern provinces and demonstrate long-standing family ties. Thus, establishing a link to a specific territory – inherently immutable – can act as an ‘anchor’ for Kurdish ethnic identity, but it also becomes a point of contention between Kurds and the state.