Nineveh, also known in early modern times as Kouyunjik, was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern bank of the Tigris River and was the capital and largest city of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, as well as the largest city in the world for several decades. Today, it is a common name for the half of Mosul that lies on the eastern bank of the Tigris, and the country's Nineveh Governorate takes its name from it.
The reconstructed Mashki Gate of Nineveh (since destroyed by the Islamic State)
Artist's impression of Assyrian palaces from The Monuments of Nineveh by Sir Austen Henry Layard, 1853
View of the village of "Nunia" or "Ninive", published by Carsten Niebuhr in 1778
Village in Nineveh in 2019
Jonah or Jonas is a prophet in the Hebrew Bible hailing from Gath-hepher in the Northern Kingdom of Israel around the 8th century BCE. He is the central figure of the Book of Jonah, which details his reluctance in delivering the judgment of Yahweh to the city of Nineveh in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. After he is swallowed by a large sea creature and then released, he returns to the divine mission.
Jonah and the Whale (1621) by Pieter Lastman
Jonah Preaching to the Ninevites (1866) by Gustave Doré, in La Grande Bible de Tours
Illustration of Jonah being swallowed by the fish from the Kennicott Bible, folio 305r (1476), in the Bodleian Library, Oxford