In Kurdish Gever means a high/raised meadow which totally matches the geographical features of the city and the area. Gever is located in a wide and raised plain. Even though this meaning is not reasonably justified, but some suggest the following: Gawar or "Gaur, Gwer, Gabr, Gawr" is a religious term of Zoroastrianism which means "fire worshipper" in Avestan, and later applied to all non-Muslim people of the Middle East in the Islamic era (see ???). This word was later used as an Islamic religious term as "Giaour, Gavur, Kuffar", meaning "infidel". In 1936, its name was changed to Yüksekova by Turkish authorities.

In the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Gawar had around 30 villages. Prior to World War I, the population of Gawar was 15,000. Inhabitants lived off agriculture that mainly consisted of wheat, barley, cotton and tea. Gawar had around 1497 families in the 1880s.

Up until World War I, Gawar was the seat of a bishop of the Church of the East. The district of Gawar served as the main travel stop for Assyrians traveling between the Hakkari tribal areas and the Urmia plains.

According to historian Hirmis Aboona, in the 1810s the whole population of villages in the region of the Upper Zab River were Assyrians until the Assyrian genocide.