Şiran

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Şiran is a district of Gümüşhane Province of Turkey. It is one of the points of passage between Eastern Anatolian and Black Sea Regions of Turkey, in the sense that the western road (departing from Erzincan) towards the Zigana Pass (the key pass between the two geographies) has its last urban stop in Şiran.

The name means "the lions" in Persian, although it is most likely to be an adaptation of the former Greek name of Khairena adopted after the Turkish settlement in the region after and possibly even slightly before the Battle of Malazgirt. It is also possible that Khairena was an adaptation of a Persian name in this region that had remained under Persian influence for millenia.

Many of the northern villages of the district was home to minority populations of Pontic Greeks till the 1922 Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, constituting the southern fringes of that community's extension. Some among the present population can also trace their roots to Greeks who had converted to Islam till as late as the end of the 19th century, as indicated by the Ottoman census and changed village names (for example, the present village of "Evren" was formerly called "Sefker", although Evren Pasha was not formerly named Sefker Pasha despite claims by some sources).