AREA: 11.973 km²
POPULATION: 2.694.770 (1990)
TRAFFIC CODE: 35
DISTRICTS: Bornova, Buca, Cigli, Karsiyaka, Konak, Menderes, Aliaga, Beydag, Bayindir, Bergama, Cesme, Dikili, Foca, Karaburun, KemalPasha, Kinik, Kira, Menemen, Odemis, Seferihisar, Selcuk, Tire, Torbali, Urla, Guzelbahce, Balcova, Cigli, Narlidere, Gaziemir.
Izmir is located in the western Aegean region and is Turkey's third largest city with over 3.5 million population and second most important port after Istanbul. The original name of Izmir is Smyrna, which comes from the Goddess Myrina, a deity worshipped before the Aeolians built their first settlement in the 10th c B.C. This name also refers to the Myrrha Commifera plant, which produces an aromatic resin. The city is set around a circular bay and is beautiful with its palm-lined promenades, avenues and green parks. Izmir is also an important commercial, industrial, business and congress center and has many good hotels.
Izmir is one of the oldest cities in the region and was originally thought to be established in northernmost corner of the gulf in present day Bayrakli and Karsiyaka, but the recent discovery of two mounds very close to each other in Yesilova and Yassitepe in the plain of Bornova and the new excavations carried out by a team of archaeologists from Izmir's Ege University under the direction of Associate Professor Zafer Derin, set the starting date of the city's history between 6500 and 4000 BC.
By 1500 BC, the area was under the influence of the Hittite Empire. The Hittites possessed a written language and mentioned several localities in the area in their records. Invasions from the Balkans in the 1200s BC, destroyed Troy VII and Hattusas, the capital of the Anatolian Hittite Empire. Anatolia (Turkey) fell back into a dark age that lasted till the emergence of the Phrygian civilization in the 8th century BC. The oldest house that has been unearthed is dated from this period. The walls of this well-preserved one-roomed house were made of sun-dried bricks and the roof of the house was made of reeds. Around that time, people started to protect the city with thick ramparts made of sun-dried bricks. From then on Smyrna achieved an identity of city-state. People generally made their living on agriculture and fishing.
The legendary Greek poet Homer, who is credited with writing the Iliad and the Odyssey was said to have been born in Izmir and according to the Greek historian Herodotus, the city was first established by the Aeolians, but shortly thereafter seized by the Ionians who developed it into one of the world's largest cultural and commercial centers of that period. The seizure of the city occurred in the following manner: Colophonians fleeing internal strife within their Ionian city had taken refuge in old Smyrna and took advantage of an opportunity that presented itself when Aeolian Smyrniots had gone outside the city ramparts for a festival in honor of Dionysus, taking possession of the city. Smyrna was added to the twelve Ionian cities, reaching a peak period between 650-545 B.C. This period was considered to be the most powerful period of the whole Ionian civilization. Under the leadership of the city of Miletus, Ionian colonies were established in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the Marmara region, the Black Sea and in Greece. The colonies competed amongst themselves and were a match for Greece proper in many areas. Smyrna by this point was no longer a small town, but an urban center that took part in the Mediterranean trade.
The city began to decline soon after due to the Persian invasion. The Persian emperor had ordered the towns of the Aegean coast to rise against the Lydians while the Persian army was advancing in Anatolia. In order to punish the towns that refused to give him support in his campaign against the Lydians, the Persian emperor attacked Smyrna as well as the other coastal towns after having conquered Sardis, the capital of Lydia. As a result of the Persian attacks, old Smyrna was destroyed in 545 BC.
Alexander the Great re-founded the city in about 300 BC. He had defeated the Persians in several battles and finally the emperor Darius himself at Issus in 333 BC. The cities of the region witnessed a great resurgence in their population. During this period, Rhodes and Pergamon reached populations of over 100,000. Ephesus, Antioch and Alexandria reached a population of over 400,000. The original location of Izmir was only sufficient for a few thousand people, so the new and larger city was formed on the slopes of Mount Pagos (Kadifekale).Becoming a Roman territory in 133 BC, Izmir enjoyed another golden period. In 178 the city was devastated by an earthquake. Considered to be one of the most severe disasters that the city has faced in its history, the earthquake completely destroyed the town. Emperor Marcus Aurelius brought a great contribution in the rebuilding activities and the city was rebuilt. Various works of architecture are thought to have been built in the city during the Roman Empire period. The streets were completely paved with stones and paved streets became preponderant in the city. After the Roman Empire's division into two distinct entities, Smyrna became a territory of the Eastern Roman Empire. It preserved its status as a notable religious center as of the early times of the Byzantine Empire and became one of the busiest ports of the empire. The decline of Byzantine power allowed armies of Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Genoese, and crusaders to march in and out of the city. In 1402 Smyrna was again destroyed, this time by Tamerlane. In 1415, it became under Ottoman rule. In 1535 Suleyman the Magnificent signed a commercial treaty with France and Izmir became a sophisticated commercial center. The large Christian population, mainly Greek, led the Turks to refer to the city as "Gavur (infidel) Izmir". The Greek settlement in Old Smyrna is attested by the presence of pottery dating from about 1000 BC onwards.
The Turks first captured Smyrna under the command of Caka Bey in 1076. He conquered Clazomenae, Foca, Chios, Samos and Cos and used Izmir as a base for his raids against the Byzantine Empire in the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles. After his death, the town and its vicinity was re-conquered by the Byzantines in 1098. Smyrna was then captured by the Knights of Rhodes when Constantinople was conquered by the Crusaders in 1204.
Smyrna became Izmir in the 14th century when Turkish sailor Umur Bey, son of the founder of the kingdom of Aydin, took the city back from the Knights Templar. He first captured the fort of Kadifekale in 131. The northern coastline of the Gulf of Izmir (Karsiyaka) was held by the sons of Saruhan, another kingdom based in Manisa. In 1344 the Genoese took back the lower castle. A sixty-year period of uneasy cohabitation between the three powers, the Aydinoglu, the Saruhan and the Genoese, ensued, with the first holding the upper castle of Izmir, the second Izmir's opposite coasts and the third the sea-side castle of St. Peter (Okkale). Izmir was first taken by the Ottomans in 1389 by Bayezid I (also known as Yildirim or the Thunderbolt), who led his armies toward the five western Turkish kingdoms, which were assimilated without a fight, through agreements, arrangements and marriages. In 1402 the Mongol Tamerlane won a victory against the Ottomans, but eventually gave back most of the Anatolian Turkish kingdoms to their former ruling families. He came to Izmir to fight the only battle of his career against a non-Muslim power, finally taking back and destroying the lower castle of Okkale (St. Peter) from the Genoese.
In 1425, Murad II re-captured Izmir for the Ottomans from the last king of Aydin, with the assistance of the Templars. The Knights Templar then asked the sultan permission to re-build the European castle of Izmir (St. Peter, Okkale), but the sultan refused, but gave permission to build the Bodrum Castle. The city became an Ottoman sanjak (sub-province) inside the larger Ottoman vilayet (province) of Aydin. One notable development that took place in end-15th century and early-16th century was the arrival of Jews of Spain from where they were evicted. Izmir is still home to Turkey's second largest Jewish community. The community is still concentrated in their traditional quarter of Karatas.
In 1620 foreigners were given special trading privileges and Izmir became one of the most important commercial centers of the Empire. Consulates of foreign countriesmoved to the city. Also at this time, a middle class, composed of Greeks, Armenians and Jews started to take hold. The attraction the city exercised for merchants and middlemen gradually changed the demographic structure of the city. The city faced a plague in 1676, then an earthquake in 1688, but continued to grow. In The railway line to Aydin was opened in 1866 (the first Ottoman Empire line). Starting in the 18th century, but more so in the19th, the population was composed of merchants of French, English, Dutch and Italian descent and numerous immigrants coming from other parts of the Ottoman Empire.
After World War I and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victors had, for a time, intended to carve up large parts of its territory under respective zones of influence and offered the western regions of Turkey to Greece under the Treaty of Sevres. On 15 May 1919 the Greek Army occupied the city after but the Greek expedition into Anatolia turned into a disaster both for that country and for the Greeks in Turkey. The Turkish army took possession of Izmir in September of 1922, ending the Greco-Turkish War. Part of the Greek population of the city was forced to seek refuge on the nearby Greek islands, while the rest was left in the frame of the ensuing 1923 agreement for the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations, part of the Lausanne Treaty. The city was gradually rebuilt after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923.
