Tal Afar , (Turkish: Telafer) (pronounced /ta.la.fer/), also known as Tal'Afar, Tall Afar, Tell Afar or Tel Afar, is a city and district in northwestern Iraq in the Nineveh Province located approximately 63 km west of Mosul, 52 km east of Sinjar and 200 km north west of Kirkuk.While no official census data exists, the city which had been assessed to have a population of approximately 200,000, had dropped to 80,000, as of 2007, nearly all of whom are Iraqi Turkmen.