Aydın

For people with the name, see Aydın (name).
Aydın
Metropolitan Municipality
Aydın
Coordinates: 37°50′53″N 27°50′43″E / 37.84806°N 27.84528°ECoordinates: 37°50′53″N 27°50′43″E / 37.84806°N 27.84528°E
Country Turkey
Province Aydın
Government
 • Mayor Özlem Çerçioğlu (CHP)
Area[1]
 • District 627.22 km2 (242.17 sq mi)
Population (2012)[2]
 • Urban 195,951
 • District 259,786
 • District density 410/km2 (1,100/sq mi)
Website www.aydin-bld.gov.tr

Aydın (pronounced [ˈajdɯn]; eye-din; formerly named Güzelhisar and Tralles) is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River (ancient Meander River) at a commanding position for the region extending from the uplands of the valley down to the seacoast. Its population was 188337 in 2010.[3] Aydın city is located along a region which was famous for its fertility and productivity since ancient times. Figs remain the province's best-known crop, although other agricultural products are also grown intensively and the city has some light industry.

At the crossroads of a busy transport network of several types, a six-lane motorway connects Aydın to İzmir, Turkey's second port, in less than an hour, and in still less time to the international Adnan Menderes Airport, located along the road between the two cities. A smaller airport, namely Aydın Airport, is located a few kilometers in the South-East of Aydın. The region of Aydın also pioneered the introduction of railways into Turkey in the 19th century and still has the densest railroad network.

The province of Aydın is also where a number of internationally known historic sites and centers of tourism are concentrated.

The weather is hot in summer, and warm all year round.

Aydın also has the distinction of being the largest urban center in Turkey administered by a female mayor, Mrs. Özlem Çerçioğlu elected in 2009.

Etymology

In ancient Greek sources, the name of the city is given as "Anthea" and "Euanthia". During the Seleucid period, it received the name "Antiochia" (Greek: Αντιόχεια). At other times it was also called "Seleucia ad Maeandrum" and "Erynina".[4] In Roman and Byzantine times, it was known as Tralles (in Latin) or Tralleis (Τραλλεῖς in Ancient Greek), and was one of the largest Aegean cities in antiquity.

After the first capture of the city by the Turks under the emirate (Beylik) of Menteşe, whose lands extended towards the south, who named it for a first period as Güzelhisar, literally "the beautiful castle" (sometimes rendered as Guzel Hissar). The city was later taken over by Turks of the Aydinids, whose lands extended towards the north, who named it after Aydinid dynasty. "Aydın" meant "lucid, enlightened" in Turkish and in a distinct evolution of the term, came to mean "lettered, educated, intellectual" in modern Turkish. It is still a popular male name.

Nevertheless, the name Güzelhisar was used throughout the early centuries of the Ottoman administration as well, often recorded in adjectival form, as "Güzelhisar of Aydın (lands)", but the name Aydın was increasingly preferred. This previous Turkish name also found its way into the international trade vocabulary until at least the end of the 18th century and its modified forms Joselassar and even Joseph Lasat were used to describe a fine type of cotton produced in this same region and much sought after.[5]

History

Antiquity

According to Strabo Tralles was founded by the Argives and Trallians, a Thracian tribe. Along with the rest of Lydia, the city fell to the Persian Empire. After its success against Athens in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta unsuccessfully sought to take the city from the Persians, but in 334 BC, Tralles surrendered to Alexander the Great without resistance and therefore was not sacked. Alexander's general Antigonus held the city from 313 to 301 BC and later the Seleucids held the city until 190 BC when it fell to Pergamon. From 133 to 129 BC, the city supported Aristonicus of Pergamon, a pretender to the Pergamene throne, against the Romans. After the Romans defeated him, they revoked the city's right to mint coins.

Tralles was a conventus for a time under the Roman Republic, but Ephesus later took over that position. The city was taken by rebels during the Mithridatic War during which many Roman inhabitants were killed. Tralles suffered greatly from an earthquake in 26 BC. Augustus provided funds for its reconstruction after which the city thanked him by renaming itself Caesarea.

Strabo describes the city as a prosperous trading center, listing famous residents of the city, including Pythodoros (native of Nysa), and orators Damasus Scombrus and Dionysocles. Several centuries later, Anthemius of Tralles, architect of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, was born in Tralles.

Christianity and Byzantine era

An early bishop Polybius (fl. ca. 105) is attested by a letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the church at Tralles. The city was officially Christianized, along with the rest of Caria, early after the conversion of Constantine, at which time the see was confirmed. Among the recorded bishops are: Heracleon (431), Maximus (451), Uranius (553), Myron (692), Theophylactus (787), Theophanes and Theopistus both ninth century, and John (1230). The Catholic Church includes this bishopric in its list of titular sees as Tralles in Asia, distinguishing it from the see of Tralles in Lydia. It has appointed no new titular bishop to these Eastern sees since the Second Vatican Council.[6]

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, with the Byzantine Empire was in civil chaos, the Seljuks took Tralles for the first time but Alexios I Komnenos re-captured the city for Byzantium in the later half of the eleventh century.

By the 13th century, the city lay in ruins. In 1278, Andronikos II Palaiologos decided to rebuild and repopulate it, now to be renamed Andronikopolis or Palaiologopolis, with the aim of forming a bulwark against Turkish encroachment in the area. The megas domestikos Michael Tarchaneiotes was given the task: he rebuilt the walls and settled 36,000 people from the surrounding regions. 13th century Byzantine settlement policy along the Meander Valley notably involved the Turkic Cumans.[7] Nevertheless, Turkish attacks resumed soon after. The city was besieged and, lacking sufficient supplies and access to water, captured by the beylik of Menteshe in 1284. The city suffered extensive destruction and part of its inhabitants were massacred.[8] Moreover, over 20,000 inhabitants were sold off as slaves.[9][10]

Turkish era

Under the rule of Menteshe, whose lands extended towards the south, the city was renamed as Güzelhisar ("beautiful castle"). The city was later taken over by the Aydinids, and made it one of their principal settlements, but not the capital.

The Beylik of Aydin was founded in the region in 1307 and they ruled the lands north of Büyük Menderes River up to and including İzmir. During the first half of the 14th century, Aydinids were as active as the Ottomans, if not more, in pressuring the islands and the lands west of Anatolia, and they caused much hardship for the Byzantine and Latin dependencies of the Aegean Sea and mainland Greece.[11] The principality was taken over by the rising Ottoman Empire, for the first time shortly before the Battle of Ankara between the Ottomans and Tamerlane in 1402, and then finally in 1425, Tamerlane having given back the province to the sons of Aydın in the interval.

Aydın became part of Anatolia Province of the Ottoman Empire and this until 1827, when it became the seat of its own eyalet under its own name, constituted among other reasons to respond to the prevalent unrest in the region, as exemplified by Atçalı Kel Mehmet Rebellion (1829–1830). The seat was moved to İzmir in the 1840s and with the abolition of eyalets under the administrative reforms of 1864, Aydın became a sanjak (subprovince) of the vilayet of the same name, with its seat still in İzmir, which had outgrown Aydın city in size as it became a booming port of international trade.

In the 19th century Aydın continued to benefit from its location at the center of the fertile Menderes valley, and its population grew.[12] At that time, besides figs and olive oil, which were the traditional crops of the region, cotton also grew in importance, with many European investors seeking alternative sources of cotton at the time of the American Civil War.

Construction of İzmir-Aydın Railway

The first railroad commenced in the Ottoman Empire and the first finished within the present-day territory of Turkey[13] was built by the British Levant Company connecting Aydın to Smyrna (now İzmir). The 130 km (81 mi) line was started in 1856 and finished in ten years.[14] The line fundamentally changed Aydın region's economy. The railway station built at the time remains an impressive structure in the city of Aydın.

The Greek Occupation of Aydın

During the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), violent fighting took place in and around Aydın [Αϊδίνιο], especially in the beginning phase of the war, during the Battle of Aydın between 27 June and 4 July 1919. The civilian population of the city, principally Turkish as well as Greek,[15] suffered heavy casualties. Neither could the city's Jewish population, 3,500-strong in 1917 go unscathed.[16]

The "efe" resistance

Aydın remained in ruins until it was re-captured by the Turkish army on 7 September 1922. Resistance warriors such as the efe Yörük Ali, who were based in the surrounding mountains and conducted a guerrilla warfare against the Greek army, became heroes in Turkey. Following the war and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey the Greeks of Aydın were exchanged with Muslims living in Greece under the 1923 agreement for the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Climate

Aydın has a mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters.

Climate data for Aydın
Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Year
Average high °C (°F) 13.4
(56.1)		 14.5
(58.1)		 18.1
(64.6)		 22.4
(72.3)		 28.3
(82.9)		 33.6
(92.5)		 36.2
(97.2)		 35.5
(95.9)		 31.9
(89.4)		 26.6
(79.9)		 19.5
(67.1)		 14.4
(57.9)		 24.53
(76.16)
Average low °C (°F) 4.2
(39.6)		 4.6
(40.3)		 6.6
(43.9)		 10.0
(50)		 14.1
(57.4)		 18.1
(64.6)		 20.4
(68.7)		 20.0
(68)		 16.5
(61.7)		 12.7
(54.9)		 8.3
(46.9)		 5.6
(42.1)		 11.76
(53.18)
Average precipitation mm (inches) 103.2
(4.063)		 86.3
(3.398)		 70.8
(2.787)		 56.5
(2.224)		 35.3
(1.39)		 17.8
(0.701)		 7.9
(0.311)		 5.3
(0.209)		 16.3
(0.642)		 45.2
(1.78)		 89.6
(3.528)		 116.8
(4.598)		 651
(25.631)
Avg. rainy days 11.0 9.8 9.0 8.6 5.9 1.9 0.7 0.5 2.1 5.1 8.4 12.1 75.1
Average relative humidity (%) 67 64 64 62 59 55 55 58 56 59 64 69 61
Mean monthly sunshine hours 139.5 140 195.3 222 285.2 333 350.3 337.9 282 220.1 153 127.1 2,785.4
Source #1: Devlet Meteoroloji İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü
Source #2: Weatherbase [17]

Economy

In the 1920s, Aydın was noted for its cotton and grain production.[18]

Modern Aydın

Recent decades have seen Aydın going beyond its traditional role as a hub for agricultural products, and developing a diversified economy increasingly based on services. One event in this process was the opening in 1992 of Adnan Menderes University, named after a favorite son of Efeler, Aydın Adnan Menderes, Turkey's prime minister during the 1950s. The pace of the economy is determined by the city's location, at only an hour's drive from the seashore. Many residents of Aydın typically have summer houses and investments in or around such centers of tourism as Kuşadası, Güzelçamlı and Didim. The construction of the six-lane İzmir-Aydın motorway also shortened the journey from Aydın to İzmir, Turkey's second portuary center, to less than an hour, and less still to the international Adnan Menderes Airport.

But still the city has a quiet country market town feel to it and its dominance, within both the Turkish market and abroad, in the production of a number of agricultural products, particularly figs, still identifies Aydın Province, and most of this trade is managed and handled from Aydın itself.

Aydın city centre is still relatively small but growing, centred on one palm-lined avenue of shops and cafes, and a maze of narrow side streets, dotted with orange trees. The people are traditional and family-oriented, so there is little night life, or cultural amenities for young people, although presumably now they have a university this will change. There are a number of mosques, high schools, dersane (private courses cramming students for the university entrance exams) and other public buildings. Like all Turkish cities Aydın is now spreading as the middle-classes are leaving their flats in the city for smarter apartments or houses slightly out of town.

Places of interest

Notable people

Crossroads in roundabout near Aydın city entry

Greco-Roman period

Aydinid-Ottoman period

Turkish Republic

Town twinning

Russia Bugulma, Tatarstan, Russia
France Le Havre, France
France Montereau-Fault-Yonne, France
United Kingdom Manchester, United Kingdom

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Area of regions (including lakes), km²". Regional Statistics Database. Turkish Statistical Institute. 2002. Retrieved 2013-03-05.
  2. ↑ "Population of province/district centers and towns/villages by districts - 2012". Address Based Population Registration System (ABPRS) Database. Turkish Statistical Institute. Retrieved 2013-02-27.
  3. ↑ http://report.tuik.gov.tr/reports/rwservlet?adnksdb2=&ENVID=adnksdb2Env&report=idari_yapi_09sonrasi.RDF&p_il1=9&p_yil=2010&p_dil=2&desformat=html Statistical Institute
  4. ↑ Hazlit, William (1851). The Classical Gazetteer. p. 353.
  5. ↑ Encyclopédie Méthodique, V. 15. Charles-Joseph Panckoucke. 1783. p. 732.
  6. ↑ Annuario Pontificio 2013 (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013, ISBN 978-88-209-9070-1), p. 995
  7. ↑ Mark L. Bartusis (1997), The Late Byzantine Army: Arms and Society, 1204-1453, University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 26, ISBN 978-0-8122-1620-2
  8. ↑ Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (University of California Press, 1971), p. 251
  9. ↑ Nicol, Donald MacGillivray (1993), The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261–1453, Cambridge University Press, p. 86, ISBN 978-0-521-43991-6
  10. ↑ Kazhdan, Alexander, ed. (1991), Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, p. 1284, ISBN 978-0-19-504652-6
  11. ↑ John Van Antwerp Fine Jr (1991). The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press. p. 292.
  12. ↑ According to 1912 figures, the Sandjak of Aydın had a total population of 220000, in which 39000-54500 according to varying sources, were Greeks. The sizable share of the Greek population was, as it was the case with many other localities across Western Anatolia, the result of an increase due to economic migration from Aegean Islands or even the Greek mainland to fertile Anatolian valleys as of the beginning of the 19th century and especially during its second half. An 1856 British report presented to the Secretary of State for War describes Aydın region in elogious terms and Aydın and the Menderes River valley to be entirely Turk.(full text) Report on Smyrna by George Rolleston for the Secretary of State for War. Section on Aydın, p. 104-108
  13. ↑ A short line built in Dobruja was started later but finished earlier than İzmir-Aydın railway.
  14. ↑ Mustafa Cavusoglu (May 2006). "Fast lines take priority in Turkish investment". Railway Gazette International. Retrieved 2006-05-29.
  15. ↑ Erhan, Çağrı (April 1999). "Greek Occupation of İzmir and Adjoining Territories - Report of the Inter-allied Commission of Inquiry (May–September 1919)" (PDF). SAM Papers No. 2/99.
  16. ↑ Günver, Güneş (2005). "An essay on Aydın's Jewish community from Tanzimat period until the Republic". Culture and Identity Symposium, İstanbul (in Turkish). Association for Researches on Culture - Koç University.
  17. ↑ http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weatherall.php3?s=43271&refer=&units=us&cityname=Aydin-Turkey
  18. ↑ Prothero, G.W. (1920). Anatolia. London: H.M. Stationery Office.

Sources

External links

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