Kırklareli Province
Kırklareli Province is a province in northwestern Turkey on the west coast of the Black Sea. The province neighbours Bulgaria to the north along a 180-kilometre long border, it borders the province of Edirne to the west and the province of Tekirdağ to the south and province of Istanbul to the southeast. Kırklareli is the capital city of the province; the province's and its central city's name means "the land of the forties" in Turkish and it may refer either to the forty Ottoman ghazis sent by the sultan Murad I to conquer the city for the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century or to the forty churches reported to be situated in the region before the Ottoman conquest, as attested by the former name of Kırklareli. There is a memorial on a hilltop in Kırklareli city, called "Kırklar Anıtı" to honor the Ottoman conquerors; the province is bisected by the Yıldız mountain range. The north and northeastern parts of the province are among the least populated and under developed parts of Turkey; the districts to the south and west are more populated because the land is better suited for agriculture and industrial development.
The north and eastern parts of the province are dominated by forests. Therefore, forestry is an important means of living in these areas. Fishing is done along the Black Sea coast; the province of Kırklareli is an important region for winemaking. A syrup called "Hardaliye", made of grape, cherry leaves and mustard seeds, is a non-alcoholic beverage special to the region. Dupnisa Cave is a famous natural attraction and a unique geological formation within the borders of the province in the north; the 60 km long coast along the Black Sea harbors one of the most pristine and undeveloped beaches in all of Turkey. There are two Nature Reserve Areas along the coast namely Saka Gölü Nature Reserve Area to the north and Kasatura Körfezi Nature Reserve Area to the south; these sites are unique with their undisturbed ecosystems harboring several endangered and endemic plant and animal species. Kırklareli province is divided into eight districts: Babaeski Demirköy Kırklareli Kofçaz Lüleburgaz Pehlivanköy Pınarhisar Vize Kırklareli is twinned with: List of populated places in Kırklareli Province Kırklareli Weather Forecast Information Forum of Kırklareli University Kırklareli News Kırklareli Photos
Erzincan
Erzincan is the capital of Erzincan Province in northeastern Turkey. Nearby cities include Erzurum, Tunceli, Bingöl, Elâzığ, Malatya, Gümüşhane and Giresun. Located at an altitude of 1,185 meters above sea level, the city's climate produces snowy winters and warm summers; the city is notable for handcrafted copper goods and a special cheese called "tulum peyniri" in Turkish. It was once noted for its silverware. Current industries include sugar textile industries; the city is home to the headquarters of the Turkish Third Army. Acilisene, the ancient city, now Erzincan, was the site of the Peace of Acilisene by which in AD 387 Armenia was divided into two vassal states, a smaller one dependent on the Byzantine Empire and a larger one dependent on Persia; this is the name by which it is called by Strabo in his Geography, 11.4.14. The etymological origin of the word is disputed, but it is agreed that the city was once called Erez. For a while it was called Justinianopolis in honour of Emperor Justinian.
In more recent Greek it has been called as Κελτζηνή and Κελεζηνή In the Armenian language, the 5th-century Life of Mashtots called it Yekeghiats In the more recent past, it was known in Armenian as Երզնկա In the settlement of Erez, at a yet unidentified site, there was a pre-Christian shrine dedicated to the Armenian goddess Anahit. A text of Agathangelos reports that during the first year of his reign, King Trdat of Armenia went to Erez and visited Anahit's temple to offer sacrifice, he ordered Gregory the Illuminator, secretly a Christian, to make an offering at its altar. When Gregory refused, he was taken captive and tortured, starting the events that would end with Trdat's conversion to Christianity some 14 years later. After that conversion, during the Christianisation of Armenia, the temple at Erez was destroyed and its property and lands were given to Gregory, it became known for its extensive monasteries. It is hard to tell; the first whose name is known is of the mid-5th century: Ioannes, who in 459 signed the decree of Patriarch Gennadius I of Constantinople against the simoniacs.
Georgius or Gregorius was one of the Fathers of the Second Council of Constantinople, appearing as "bishop of Justinianopolis". Theodorus was at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, signing as "bishop of Justinianopolis or the region of Ecclenzine". Georgius was at the Photian Council of Constantinople; until the 10th century, the diocese itself appears in none of the Notitiae Episcopatuum. At the end of that century, they present it as an autocephalous archdiocese, those of the 11th century present it as a metropolitan see with 21 suffragans; this was the time of greatest splendour of Acilisene, which ended with the decisive defeat of the Byzantines by the Seljuq Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. After the 13th century, there is no mention of diocesan bishops of Acilisene and the see no longer appears in Notitiae Episcopatuum. No longer a residential bishopric, Acilisene is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see. In 1071 Erzincan was absorbed into the Mengüçoğlu under the Seljuk Sulëiman Kutalmish.
Marco Polo, who wrote about his visit to Erzincan, said that the "people of the country are Armenians" and that Erzincan was the "noblest of cities" which contained the See of an Archbishop. In 1243 it was destroyed in fighting between the Seljuks under the Mongols. However, by 1254 its population had recovered enough that William of Rubruck was able to say an earthquake had killed more than 10,000 people. During this period, the city reached a level of semi-independence under the rule of Armenian princes. Erzincan was one of the most pivotal towns in Safavid history, it was there, in the summer of 1500, that about 7,000 Qizilbash forces, consisting of the Ustaclu, Rumlu, Zhulkadir, Afshar and Varsak tribes, responded to the invitation of Ismail I, whom would aid in him establishing his dynasty. The Battle of Erzincan took place during the Caucasus Campaign of the First World War. In 1916 Erzincan was the headquarters for the Turkish Third Army commanded by Kerim Pasha; the Russian General Nikolai Yudenich led the Russian Caucasus Army who captured Mama Hatun on 12 July 1916.
They gained the heights of Naglika and took a Turkish position on the banks of the Durum Durasi river, with their cavalry breaking through the Boz-Tapa-Meretkli line. They advanced on Erzincan arriving by 25 June and taking the city in two days; the city was untouched by battle and Yudenich seized large quantities of supplies. Despite the strategic advantages gained from this victory, Yudenich made no more significant advances and his forces were reduced due to Russian reverses further north. Colonel Kâzım Karabekir was appointed the commander of the First Caucasian Army Corps. Aware of the withdrawal of the Russian Army following the Russian Revolution, they retook Erzincan in February 1918. A short-lived soviet council had been at Erzincan between 1916-1921. Today's Erzincan and Tunceli provinces were under Russian occupation. After the revolution, Bolshevik soldiers took control of the officer corps. Arşak Cemalyan, a Bolshevik soldier, called Kurdish and Armenian representatives to take charge of the administration of Erzincan Soviet.
The city was destroyed by a major earthquake on December 27, 1939. The sequence of seven violent shocks, the biggest measuring 7.8 on the moment magnitude scale, was the most powerful one to strike Turkey in recent history. The first stage of the earthquake killed about 8,000 people; the next day, it was reported
Afyonkarahisar Province
Afyonkarahisar Province called more Afyon Province, is a province in western Turkey. Adjacent provinces are Kütahya to the northwest, Uşak to the west, Denizli to the southwest, Burdur to the south, Isparta to the southeast, Konya to the east, Eskişehir to the north; the provincial capital is Afyonkarahisar. It covers an area of 14.230 km², the population is about 706.371. Afyonkarahisar province is divided into 18 districts: Afyonkarahisar Başmakçı Bayat Bolvadin Çay Çobanlar Dazkırı Dinar Emirdağ Evciler Hocalar İhsaniye İscehisar Kızılören Sandıklı Sinanpaşa Sultandağı Şuhut Media related to Afyonkarahisar Province at Wikimedia Commons Afyonkarahisar governor's official website Afyonkarahisar municipality's official website Pictures of the capital of Afyonkarahisar province. With old Fortress of Opium, nice old centre. Https://web.archive.org/web/20060622072815/http://www.turkeyforecast.com/weather/afyon/
Refahiye
Refahiye is a town and district of Erzincan Province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. It covers an area of 1,744 km², the elevation is 1,589 m; the district has a total population of 10,569. The mayor is Cevdet Çınar, it is on the Asian highway network. The province is known for its mountains called Dumanlı Mountains. There are a lot of local honey producers in the villages in Refahiye, it was affected by the earthquake of 1939, much of its infrastructure had to be rebuilt from scratch. Şahverdi, a beautiful village of Refahiye Information related to Şahverdi Köyü in Turkish District governor's official website District municipality's official website
Kemaliye
Kemaliye is both a town in and one of the nine districts of Erzincan Province in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. The town is known including many Ottoman-era houses, it is notable for its commanding view of the river Karasu flowing south through a gorge above the Keban dam. In 1813, James Playfair's "A System of Geography" described Eğin as " little town in the form of an amphitheatre, at the foot of a mountain, in a fruitful tract that reaches to the Euphrates."The British explorer Francis Rawdon Chesney followed the course of the Euphrates for a survey expedition between 1835 and 1837, mentions Eğin as "a town of 2700 houses on the right bank". In comparison, he counts about 2923 families in Malatya. Chesney describes Eğin's situation in a deep valley where the "mountains rise to about 4000 feet on each side of this singular fissure, so narrow that it is crossed by a bridge between lofty limestone precipices seeming to overhang the town and as it were to threaten its destruction." In 1895, the British geographer Charles William Wilson describes Eğin as follows in a travel guide to Asia Minor.
An Armenian historian Vahakn Dadrian reports that in 1896, the town was evenly divided between Armenians and Muslims. He says that Eğin was notable for its prosperity and had escaped the 1895–1896 Hamidian massacres through a ransom payment by the Armenians of 1500 Turkish gold pounds. However, British archaeologist David George Hogarth writing for the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica noted a massacre of Armenians in Eğin on November 8, 1895. By 1911, Hogarth described Eğin as an important town in the Mamuretülaziz Vilayet "...picturesquely situated in a theatre of lofty, abrupt rocks, on the right bank of the western Euphrates, crossed by a wooden bridge. The stone houses stand in terraced gardens and orchards, the streets are mere rock ladders."On 21 October 1922, following the Turkish War of Independence, a decree was issued renaming Eğin as Kemaliye in honor of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. The former name is still known and used locally and sometimes beyond. Kemaliye was administered as part of Elazığ Province until 1926, within Malatya Province between 1926 and 1938.
In 1938 it was transferred to Erzincan Province. The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 30 January 1923, by the governments of Greece and Turkey, had as result the evacuation of Egin from its Armenian-speaking Greek Orthodox minority population, inhabited there. After a most difficult journey of 8 months and more than a thousand kilometres, they reached the shores of Aegean and were transported in Diavata, near Thessaloniki and Kastaniotissa, at the Greek island of Evia. Papken Siuni, leader of the Ottoman Bank takeover. Siamanto, Armenian writer and national figure arrested on Red Sunday and killed during the Armenian Genocide. Nikol Galanderian, Armenian composer of children's songs. Hasan Basri Aktan, politician.
Muğla Province
Muğla Province is a province of Turkey, at the country's south-western corner, on the Aegean Sea. Its seat is Muğla, about 20 km inland, while some of Turkey's largest holiday resorts, such as Bodrum, Ölüdeniz and Fethiye, are on the coast in Muğla; the original name of Muğla is open for discussion. Various sources refer to the city as Mobella or Mobolia. At 1,100 km, Muğla's coastline is the longest among the Provinces of Turkey and longer than many countries' coastlines. Important is the Datça Peninsula; as well as the sea, Muğla has Lake Bafa in the district of Milas and Lake Köyceğiz. The landscape consists of pot-shaped small plains surrounded by mountains, formed by depressions in the Neogene; these include the plain of the city of Muğla itself, Yeşilyurt, Ula, Gülağzı, Akkaya, Çamköy and Yenice). Until the recent building of highways, transport from these plains to either the coast or inland was quite arduous, thus each locality remained an isolated culture of its own. Contact with the outside world was through one of the three difficult passes: northwest to Milas, north to the Menderes plain through Gökbel, or northeast to Tavas.
The economy of Muğla relies on tourism, agriculture and marble quarries inland. Agriculture in Muğla is rich and varied; the province is the second center of marble industry in Turkey after Afyonkarahisar in terms of quantity and quality. Other mineral exploitation includes chrome in Fethiye. Other industry in the province includes the SEKA paper mill in Dalaman and the power stations at Yatağan, Yeniköy and Kemerköy; however Muğla is by no means an industrialised province. The following are aspects about transportation in Muğla province: There are two airports in Dalaman and Milas-Bodrum, serving domestic and international flights and catering to the tourism industry. There are yacht marinas in Bodrum, Fethiye and Güllük. There are many run bus connections to İzmir, Ankara and other major cities in Turkey from Muğla and directly from the coastal resorts. In ancient times in Anatolia, the region between the Menderes and Dalaman rivers in the south was called Caria; the inhabitants were Leleges. In his Iliad, Homer describes the Carians as natives of Anatolia, defending their country against Greeks in joint campaigns in collaboration with the Trojans.
A major city of ancient Caria, Muğla is known to have been occupied by raiding parties of Egyptians and Scythians, until the area was settled by Ancient Greek colonists. The Greeks inhabited this coast for a long time building prominent cities, such as Knidos and Bodrum, as well as many smaller towns along the coast, on the Bodrum Peninsula and inland, including in the district of Fethiye the cities of Telmessos, Xanthos and Tlos; the coast was conquered by Persians who were in turn removed by Alexander the Great, bringing an end to the satrapy of Caria. In 1261, Menteshe Bey, founder of the Beylik that carried his name, with its capital in Milas and nearby Beçin, established his rule over the region of Muğla as well; the beys of Menteshe held the city until 1390 and this, the first Turkish state in the region, achieved a high level of cultural development, its buildings remaining to this day. The province became a significant naval power, trading with the Aegean Islands, Crete and as far as Venice and Egypt.
Turkish settlement during the Menteshe period took place through migrations along the Kütahya-Tavas axis. In 1390, Muğla was taken over by the Ottoman Empire. However, just twelve years Tamerlane and his forces defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara, returned control of the region to its former rulers, the Menteshe Beys, as he did for other Anatolian beyliks. Muğla was brought back under Ottoman control by Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror, in 1451. One of the most important events in the area during the Ottoman period was the well-recorded campaign of Süleyman the Magnificent against Rhodes, launched from Marmaris. With this long history Muğla is rich in ancient ruins, with over 100 excavated sites including the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Letoon, near Fethiye; the following are notable residents of Muğla province: Herodotus of Halicarnassos, historian Turgut Reis Seaman Basil Zaharoff, Arms dealer born in Muğla Osman Hamdi Bey Painter had his summer residence in Yatağan Şükrü Kaya, Minister of the Interior under Atatürk, born in İstanköy Mustafa Muğlalı, Turkish War of Independence general Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu, Founder of Cumhuriyet newspaper and key supporter of Atatürk, from Fethiye Zihni Derin, Agriculturalist responsible for planting tea in the Eastern Black Sea region, from Muğla Necati Çiller, father of Prime Minister Tansu Çiller, governor of Istanbul in the 1950s, from Milas Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı, writer of The "Fisherman of Halicarnasoss" and his student Şadan Gökovalı Nail Çakırhan, architect of the Akyaka Çakırhan houses and winner of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture Janet Akyüz Mattei Amateur astronomer and president of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, of Bodrum.
Zeki Müren and fixture of the Bodrum nightclub scene for many years Poet Can Yücel is buried in Datça, his home in his final years Former President Kenan Evren lived in Marmaris after he retired until his death. The Republican People's Party, Turkey's principal center-left party
Denizli Province
Denizli Province is a province of Turkey in Western Anatolia, on high ground above the Aegean coast. Neighbouring provinces are Uşak to the north, Isparta, Afyon to the east, Aydın, Manisa to the west and Muğla to the south, it is located between the coordinates 28° 30’ and 29° 30’ E and 37° 12’ and 38° 12’ N. It covers an area of 11,868 km2, the population is 931,823; the population was 750,882 in 1990. The provincial capital is the city of Denizli. 28-30% of the land is plain, 25% is high plateau and tableland, 47% is mountainous. At 2571m Mount Honaz is the highest in the province, indeed in Western Anatolia. Babadag in the Mentes range has a height of 2308 meters; the biggest lake in Denizli is Acıgöl, which means bitter lake and indeed industrial salts are extracted from this lake, alkaline. There is a thermal spring to the west of Sarayköy, at the source of the Great Menderes River, which contains bicarbonates and sulfates. There is another hot spring in Kızıldere which reaches 200˚C. A geothermal steam source was first found in the region in 1965 during drilling work.
Today there is a power plant producing electricity from the geothermal steam. Only 11% of the geothermal energy source is used to produce electricity and 89% of it, which flows into the Great Menderes, is 150˚C at source. In general the Aegean region has a mild climate. However, it becomes harsher at altitude. Temperatures can fall to -5 °C in winter. There are about 80 days with precipitation during winter. There are traces of prehistoric cultures throughout the province, including evidence of pre-Hittite cultures and the Hittites themselves; the Hittites were followed by Phrygians and Persians, cities founded by the ancient Greeks and Alexander the Great. The first real settlement was the city of Laodicea on the Lycus, established by King Antiochus II for his wife Laodice. Laodicea is located 6 km north of the city of Denizli; the city of Hierapolis was established around 190 BC by the Pergamene Kingdom, one of the Hellenistic states of Anatolia. The calcified terraces and pools of Pamukkale now stand below the ruins of Hierapolis.
The two cities and Hierapolis came under Roman rule, with the division of the Empire in 395 were left within the boundaries of the East Roman Empire. The province has strong biblical connections: in the Book of Revelation, John the Evangelist hears a loud voice which sounded like a trumpet when he was on the island of Patmos; the voice says: "Write down what you see and send the book to the Churches in these seven cities: Ephesus, Pergamum, Sardis and Laodicea". The Church of Laodicea was a sacred place in pre-Christian times, is still visited by Christians today, although it lost its importance to a great extent during Byzantine rule. Turks were first seen in Denizli in 1070 when Afşın Bey, under the control of the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan, raided the area; the second and third Crusades fought here against Kazıkbeli, who managed to flee with a small force to Antalya. After the Turks had established control of the ancient cities, they moved south to the site of the present city of Denizli, where drinking water was brought through stone pipes.
The name Laodicea changed into “Ladik” since the 17th century other names were given “Tonguzlu”, ”Tonuzlu”, ”Tenguzlug”, ”Donuzlu” and “Denizli”. After World War I, when the Greek army arrived in İzmir on May 15, 1919, one of the first centres of Turkish resistance formed at an open-air meeting in Denizli. A Turkish militia formed lines on the Menderes organized by Yörük Ali and Demirci Efe, involving large numbers of volunteers from the local peasantry. Stiffened by the Turkish regular army, Greek forces were repelled, Denizli remained in Turkish hands throughout the Greco-Turkish War. See the article on Denizli and other districts for more details.... Near Denizli... Laodicea ad Lycum - Ruins of the ancient city located north of Denizli, about 1km north of the village of Eskihisar. Hierapolis and Pamukkale -20 km north of Denizli; the ruins of the ancient city and the hillside covered in minerals from the thermal waters. The Seljuk caravanserai Akhan, 6 km from Denizli on the Ankara highway.and near the other districts in the province....
Tripolis near the village of Yenicekent in Buldan - ruins of a city dating back to the Hellenistic period. A few remains in Honaz. Beycehöyük in Çivril, where several antiquities of the Copper Age dating back to 3000 BC were found; the Hanabat Caravanserai in Çardak is a typical Seljuk caravaserai. The Ahmetli Bridge over the Great Menderes river, 15 km from Sarayköy dates back to the Roman era. Denizli is renowned in Turkey for having a famous breed of cock, renowned for its appearance and colour, along with its prolonged and melodious crows. Great effort is taken by the state and local farmers to preserve the breed. In appearance the Denizli cock has black eyes, dark grey legs, a long neck, a red crown, it weighs 3-3.5 kg, has a distinctive crow. List of populated places in Denizli Province Media related to Denizli Province at Wikimedia Commons Denizli governor's official website Denizli municipality's official website Map of Denizli Satellite view The Rooster Cock of Denizli Denizli Weather Forecast Information Denizli Telephone Address Book, Guide
