In 1908, before the "Seyfo" genocide, the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the creation in the Middle East of new states such as Iraq, an article in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" could say that "in Chaldea proper, apart from Baghdad, there are now very few adherents of this rite, most of the Chaldean population being found in the cities of Kirkuk, Erbil, and Mosul, in the heart of the Tigris valley, in the valley of the Zab, and in the mountains of Kurdistan. It is in the former ecclesiastical province of Ator (Assyria) that are now found the most flourishing of the Catholic Chaldean communities. The native population accepts the name of Atoraya-Kaldaya (Assyro-Chaldeans), while in the neo-Syriac vernacular Christians generally are known as Syrians." The consequent upheaval produced both an exodus, in particular but not only from what is now Turkey, to other countries and, within Iraq, a mainly urbanized Chaldean Church.