Müzik/
Music: Ateşini yolla (
Hakan Peker)
Ankara is the capital of
Turkey and the country's second largest city after
Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of 938 metres (3,077 ft),and as of
2010 the metropolitan area in the entire
Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million.
Centrally located in
Anatolia, Ankara is an important commercial and industrial city. It is the center of the
Turkish Government, and houses all foreign embassies. It is an important crossroads of trade, strategically located at the centre of Turkey's highway and railway networks, and serves as the marketing centre for the surrounding agricultural area. The city was famous for its long-haired
Angora goat and its prized wool (mohair), a unique breed of cat (
Angora cat), white rabbits and their prized wool (
Angora wool), pears, honey, and the region's muscat grapes.
The historical center of Ankara is situated upon a rocky hill, which rises
150 m (492 ft) above the plain on the left bank of the Ankara Çayı, a tributary of the
Sakarya (
Sangarius) river. The city is located at 39°52'30"
North, 32°52'
East (39.875°
N 32.8333°ECoordinates: 39.875°N 32.8333°E), about 450 km (280 mi) to the southeast of Istanbul, the country's largest city. Although situated in one of the driest places of Turkey and surrounded mostly by steppe vegetation except for the forested areas on the southern periphery, Ankara can be considered a green city in terms of green areas per inhabitant, which is 72 m2 per head.
Ankara is a very old city with various Hittite, Phrygian,
Hellenistic,
Roman,
Byzantine, and Ottoman archaeological sites. The hill which overlooks the city is crowned by the ruins of the old castle, which adds to the picturesqueness of the view, but only a few historic structures surrounding the old citadel have survived to the present day. There are, however, many finely preserved remains of Hellenistic, Roman and
Byzantine architecture, the most remarkable being the
Temple of Augustus and Rome (20 BC) which is also known as the
Monumentum Ancyranum.In 1071, the
Turkish Seljuq
Sultan Alp Arslan conquered much of eastern and central Anatolia after his victory at the
Battle of Manzikert. He then annexed Ankara, an important location for military transportation and natural resources, to his territory in 1073.
After the Battle of
Köse Dağ in 1243 in which the
Mongols defeated the
Seljuqs, most of Anatolia became part of the dominion of the Mongols.
Taking advantage of Seljuq decline, a semi religious cast of craftsmen and trade people named Ahiler chose Ankara as their independent city state in 1290.
Orhan I, the second
Bey of the Ottoman Empire, captured the city in 1356.
Timur defeated the
Ottomans at the
Battle of Ankara in 1402 and took the city, but in 1403 Ankara was again under Ottoman control.
Following the Ottoman defeat at
World War I, the Ottoman capital Istanbul and much of Anatolia were occupied by the
Allies, who planned to share these lands between
Armenia,
France,
Greece,
Italy and the
United Kingdom, leaving for the
Turks the core piece of land in central Anatolia. In response, the leader of the
Turkish nationalist movement,
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, established the headquarters of his resistance movement in Ankara in
1920 (see the
Treaty of Sèvres and the
Turkish War of Independence.)
After the War of
Independence was won and the Treaty of Sèvres was superseded by the
Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish nationalists replaced the
Ottoman Empire with the
Republic of Turkey on
29 October 1923. A few days earlier, Ankara had officially replaced Istanbul (formerly
Constantinople) as the new Turkish capital city, on
13 October 1923.
After Ankara became the capital of the newly founded Republic of Turkey, new development divided the city into an old section, called Ulus, and a new section, called
Yenişehir.
Ancient buildings reflecting Roman, Byzantine, and
Ottoman history and narrow winding streets mark the old section.
The new section, now centered on
Kızılay, has the trappings of a more modern city: wide streets, hotels, theaters, shopping malls, and high-rises.
Government offices and foreign embassies are also located in the new section. Ankara has experienced a phenomenal growth since it was made Turkey's capital. It was "a small town of no importance"[10] when it was made the capital of Turkey. In 1924, the year after the government had moved there, Ankara had about 35,
000 residents. By
1927 there were 44,553 residents and by
1950 the population had grown to
286,781.
www.ankara.bel.tr
- published: 01 Sep 2011
- views: 171798