Defne
Defne is a planned district and second level municipality in Hatay Province, Turkey. According to Turkish law act number 6360, all provinces with a population more than 750,000 will be a metropolitan municipality and the districts within the metropolitan municipalities will be second level municipalities. The law also creates new districts within the provinces in addition to present districts.[1] These changes will be effective by the local elections in 2014.The population of Defne was 134,570 as of 2013.[2]
Thus after 2014 the present Hatay central district (Antakya) will be split into two. A part will be named Defne and the name Hatay will be reserved for the metropolitan municipality. (Defne means laurus which is one of the agricultural products of Hatay Province; it is also related to the ancient suburb of Antioch, Daphne.)
Rural area
There were 9 towns and 24 villages in the rural area of Defne district. Now their official status became "neighborhood of Defne".