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83-1064: Most of the people who speak Balkan Romani are Roma themselves. Another meaning of the prefix rom is someone belonging to the Roma ethnicity. The Roma are ultimately of Indian origin. Speakers of the Balkan Romani language have constantly migrated throughout the years into all parts of Europe. Since these speakers have migrated to different parts of Europe, new dialects have formed. Although the Roma originated in India, they are now widespread throughout all of Europe. Balkan dialects, also known as Balkan I, are spoken in Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Iran, North Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Ukraine. This group includes inter alia Arli Romani (Greece, North Macedonia), Sepečides Romani (Greece, Turkey), Ursari Romani (Moldavia, Romania) and Crimean Romani (Ukraine). Zis dialects, also called Balkan II, are

166-609: A great fire broke out in the city, lasting until 22 September . The fire completely destroyed the Greek and Armenian quarters, while the Muslim and Jewish quarters escaped damage. Estimated Greek and Armenians deaths resulting from the fire range from 10,000 to 100,000 Approximately 50,000 to 400,000 Greek and Armenian refugees crammed the waterfront to escape from the fire and were forced to remain there under harsh conditions for nearly two weeks. The systematic evacuation of Greeks on

249-583: A hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa , Trewartha climate classification : Cshk ), which is characterized by prolonged, very hot, dry summers, and cool, rainy winters. İzmir's average yearly precipitation is quite ample, at 730.5 mm (28.76 in); however, the vast majority of the city's rainfall occurs from November through March, and there is usually very little rainfall from June to September, with frequent summer droughts. The city received its greatest daily rainfall, 145.3 mm (5.72 in), on September 29, 2006, while

332-662: A Greek dialect with some Turkish words. These Romani tend to call themselves Sevlengere Roma. The younger generation's first language is Romani, followed by Greek. The Sevlengere on the island of Skyros are Greek Roma or are the descendants of the Muslim Roma who stayed and converted to Orthodox Christianity. Some of the Orthodox Sevlengere also settled in Volax . The Sepečides who remained in Greece at Volos took up

415-655: A dependency of the Hittites , who themselves spread their direct rule as far as the coast during their Great Kingdom. That the realm of the 13th century BC local Luwian ruler, who is depicted in the Kemalpaşa Karabel rock carving at a distance of only 50 km (31 mi) from İzmir was called the Kingdom of Myra may also leave grounds for association with the city's name. The latest known rendering in Greek of

498-564: A distinct subdivision within the Balkan group. Bugurdži, Drindari and Kalajdži Romani are spoken in North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and in northern and central Bulgaria. Elšík uses this classification and dialect examples (geographical information from Matras): Balkan Romani retains the aspirated consonants /pʰ, tʰ, tʃʰ, kʰ/ of other Indic languages. These are distinctive in the majority of Romani varieties. Balkan Romani does not have

581-556: A large part of Turkey's present-day Aegean Region . In the late 19th century, the port was threatened by a build-up of silt in the gulf and an initiative, unique in the history of the Ottoman Empire, was undertaken in 1886. In order to redirect the silt, the bed of the Gediz River was redirected to its present-day northern course, so that it no longer flowed into the gulf. The beginning of the 20th century saw İzmir take on

664-646: A monograph codifying this dialect in 1996. Many of the Sepečides from Greece live in Izmir , where their descendants speak only Turkish. The Sepečides Roma people of İzmir are of Greek / Turkish origin. Genetic research clearly shows that the Early Romani originated in the Indian subcontinent . Up until about 1920 the traditional profession of these Roma people was the making and selling of baskets. According to

747-458: A plague in 1676, an earthquake in 1688, and a great fire in 1743, the city continued to grow. By the end of the 17th century, the population was estimated at around ninety thousand, the Turks forming the majority (about 60,000); there were also 15,000 Greeks, 8,000 Armenians and 6,000 to 7,000 Jews, as well as a considerable section made up of French , English , Dutch and Italian merchants. In

830-418: A rather sparsely populated place in the 15th and 16th centuries, as indicated by the first extant Ottoman records describing the town dating from 1528. In 1530, 304 adult males, both tax-paying and tax-exempt were on record, 42 of them Christians. There were five urban wards, one of these situated in the immediate vicinity of the port, rather active despite the town's small size and where the non-Muslim population

913-461: A riot resulting from the indiscipline of janissaries corps led to massive destruction of the Frankish merchant community and the killing of 1,500 members of the city's Greek community. In 1818, traveller William Jowett described the distribution of Smyrna (now İzmir)'s population: Turks 60,000, Greeks 40,000, Jews 10,000, Latins 3,000, Armenians 7,000. The first railway lines to be built within

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996-599: A root is always written, e.g. jakh 'eye'. Final devoicing is not written, e.g. dad 'father'. Palatalization is not written, e.g. buti 'work' (not buči etc.), kerdo 'done' (not ćerdo etc.), pani 'water' (not pai etc.). The proposed alphabet is as follows: Turkish lexical influence is a defining and extremely important part of the Romani dialect in the Balkans. Most of the words however, originate from Persian. Loans from Persian, Armenian, and Byzantine Greek make up

1079-464: A whole fell into what is generally called the period of "Anatolian" and "Greek" Dark Ages of the Bronze Age collapse . At the dawn of İzmir's recorded history, Pausanias describes "evident tokens" such as "a port called after the name of Tantalus and a sepulcher of him by no means obscure", corresponding to the city's area and which have been tentatively located to date. The term "Old Smyrna"

1162-558: A wide arc to the north-west from İzmir, through the Karşıyaka suburb, contributed greatly to the development of the northern shores as urban areas. These new developments, typical of the industrial age and the way the city attracted merchants and middlemen gradually changed the demographic structure of the city, its culture and its Ottoman character. In 1867, İzmir finally became the center of its own vilayet , still called by neighboring Aydın's name but with its own administrative area covering

1245-581: A written standard. There has been an attempt at standardization, at a 1992 conference in North Macedonia, based on the Arli dialect and using the Latin script. /x/ and /h/ are distinctive in some dialects, but not in the Arli dialect and so are not distinguished in writing. the two rhotics are also not distinguished. Schwa is rare in Arli; where it does occur, it is substituted with the vowel of Džambaz or some other dialect, e.g. vërdon → vurdon 'wagon'. Aspiration in

1328-578: Is an example of the historic traces in the region prior to the Hellenistic Age , along with those found in nearby Kemalpaşa and Mount Sipylus . The Agora of Smyrna is well preserved, and is arranged into the Agora Open Air Museum of İzmir , although important parts buried under modern buildings wait to be brought to light. Serious consideration is also being given to uncovering the ancient theatre of Smyrna where St. Polycarp

1411-775: Is one of the oldest settlements of the Mediterranean basin. The 2004 discovery of Yeşilova Höyük and the neighboring Yassıtepe, in the small delta of Meles River , now the Bornova plain, reset the starting date of the city's past further back than previously thought. Findings from two seasons of excavations carried out in the Yeşilova Höyük by a team of archaeologists from İzmir's Ege University indicate three levels, two of which are prehistoric. Level 2 bears traces of early to mid- Chalcolithic , and Level 3 of Neolithic settlements. These two levels would have been inhabited by

1494-475: Is partially restored today. Smyrna, by this point, was no longer a small town, but an urban center taking part in the Mediterranean trade. The city eventually became one of the twelve Ionian cities and was well on its way to becoming a foremost cultural and commercial center in the Mediterranean basin of that period, reaching its peak between 650–545 BC. The city's port position near their capital drew

1577-575: Is said to have been born in Smyrna in the 7th or 8th century BC . Combined with written evidence, it is generally admitted that Smyrna and Chios put forth the strongest arguments in claiming Homer and the main belief is that he was born in Ionia . The River Meles , still bearing the same name, is located within the city limits, although associations with the Homeric river is subject to controversy. From

1660-471: Is still concentrated in their traditional quarter of Karataş . Smyrniot Jews like Sabbatai Zevi and Darío Moreno were among famous figures in the city's Jewish community. Others include the Pallache family with three grand rabbis: Haim , Abraham , and Nissim . The Catholic Levantines of İzmir , who are mostly of Genoese and to a lesser degree of French and Venetian descent, live mainly in

1743-858: Is the Romani dialect of the traditionally basketweaving Roma originally from Thessaloniki . Their ancestors lived there as nomads during the Ottoman Empire until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey . The Sepečides dialect is considered to be non- Vlax . It belongs to the Southern Balkan group of Romani dialects , although the RomArchive claims the language is practically extinct. The dialect has many Greek and Turkish loanwords . The loanword verb markers in Romani "are often Greek derived markers, maintained even when contact with Greek has ceased." Linguist Petra Cech published

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1826-828: Is used to describe the Archaic Period city located at Tepekule, Bayraklı, to make a distinction with the city of Smyrna rebuilt later on the slopes of Mount Pagos (present-day Kadifekale ). The Greek settlement in Old Smyrna is attested by the presence of pottery dating from about 1000 BC onwards. The most ancient preserved ruins date back to 725– 700 BC . According to Herodotus the city was founded by Aeolians and later seized by Ionians . The oldest house discovered in Bayraklı has been dated to 925 and 900 BC . The walls of this well-preserved house (2.45 by 4 metres or 8.0 by 13.1 feet), consisting of one small room typical of

1909-591: The Crusaders during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, but the Nicaean Empire would reclaim possession of the city soon afterwards, albeit by according vast concessions to their Genoese allies who kept one of the city's castles and the lordship of the towns of Old Phocaea and New Phocaea (now part of the İzmir Province) from 1275 to 1340. Smyrna was captured again in the 14th century by Umur Bey,

1992-571: The Greek Army landed in Smyrna , but the Greek expedition towards central Anatolia was disastrous for both that country and for the local Greeks of Anatolia . By September 1922 the Greek army had been defeated and the last Greek soldiers left Smyrna on 8 September 1922. The Turkish Army retook possession of the city on 9 September 1922, effectively ending the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) . Four days later, on 13 September 1922,

2075-600: The Greeks remaining in the city fled, were killed or forced to leave under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Turkey is home to tens of thousands of black citizens descended from the African slave trade in the Ottoman Empire that can be traced back to the 14th century. Known as Afro-Turks , İzmir and the surrounding areas on the Aegean coast is a central hub for this population. İzmir has

2158-461: The Iron Age , were made of sun-dried bricks and the roof of the house was made of reeds . A house found in Old Smyrna with two floors and five rooms with a courtyard, built in the second half of the 7th century BC , is the oldest known house having so many rooms under its roof. Around that time, people started to build thick, protective ramparts made of sun-dried bricks around the city. Smyrna

2241-675: The Lydians to Smyrna. The army of Lydia 's Mermnad dynasty conquered the city sometime around 610–600 BC and is reported to have burned and destroyed parts of the city, although recent analyses on the remains in Bayraklı demonstrate that the temple had been in continuous use or was very quickly repaired under the Lydian rule. Soon afterwards, an invasion from outside Anatolia by the Persian Empire effectively ended Old Smyrna's history as an urban center of note. The Persian emperor Cyrus

2324-575: The Myrrha commifera shrub, a plant producing the aromatic resin called myrrh that is indigenous to the Middle East and northeastern Africa , which was the city's chief export in antiquity. The Romans took over this name as Smyrna , which is still the name used in English when referring to the city in pre-Turkish times. In Ottoman Turkish the town's name was ازمير Izmīr . In English,

2407-579: The Roman Republic , and this included Smyrna. The city thus came under Roman rule as a civil diocese within the Province of Asia and enjoyed a new period of prosperity. Towards the close of the 1st century AD, Smyrna appeared as one of the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 2:9). Apostle John urged his followers to remain Christians: "Be faithful to the point of death, and I will give you

2490-693: The Seljuk commander Çaka Bey in 1076, along with Klazomenai , Foça and a number of the Aegean Islands . Çaka Bey (known as Tzachas among the Byzantines) used İzmir as a base for his naval operations. In 1097, the Byzantine commander John Doukas recaptured the city and the neighboring region. The port city was then captured by the Knights of St John when Constantinople was conquered by

2573-477: The indigenous peoples of the area, very roughly, between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC. As the seashore receded with time, the site was later used as a cemetery. Several graves containing artifacts dating roughly from 3000 BC, and contemporary with the first city of Troy , were found. The first settlement to have commanded the Gulf of İzmir as a whole was established on top of Mount Yamanlar , to

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2656-544: The 17th century was largely a result of the attraction it exercised over foreigners and the city's European orientation. With the privileged trading conditions accorded to foreigners in 1620 (these were the infamous capitulations that were later to cause a serious threat and setback for the Ottoman state in its decline), İzmir began to be one of the foremost trade centers of the Empire. Foreign consulates moved from Chios to

2739-570: The 1950s in Söke where they still weave baskets. Some words and phrases from the old Sepečides dialect survived, but their main language is now Turkish. Izmir İzmir is a city on the west coast of Anatolia , and capital of İzmir Province . It is the third most populous city in Turkey , after Istanbul and Ankara , and the largest urban agglomeration on the Aegean Sea . In 2019,

2822-489: The 3rd millennium BC. Archaeological findings of the late Bronze Age show a certain degree of Mycenaean influence in the settlement and the surrounding region, though further excavations of Bronze Age layers are needed to propose Old Smyrna of that time as a Mycenaean settlement. In the 13th century BC, however, invasions from the Balkans (the so-called Sea Peoples ) destroyed Troy VII, and Central and Western Anatolia as

2905-498: The 7th century onwards, Smyrna achieved the identity of a city-state . About a thousand people lived inside the city walls , with others living in nearby villages, where fields, olive trees, vineyards , and the workshops of potters and stonecutters were located. People generally made their living from agriculture and fishing . The most important sanctuary of Old Smyrna was the Temple of Athena , which dates back to 640–580 BC and

2988-552: The American Consul General, George Horton , records 165,000 Turks, 150,000 Greeks, 25,000 Jews, 25,000 Armenians, and 20,000 foreigners (Italians, French, British, Americans). According to Henry Morgenthau and Trudy Ring, before World War I, the Greeks alone numbered 130,000, out of a total population of 250,000. Moreover, according to various scholars, prior to the war, the city hosted more Greeks than Athens ,

3071-636: The Balkan Romani language is again heavily influenced by both the Turkish and Greek languages. Many people view this language as a sort of melting pot because there are so many different influences on it. Turkish and Greek might be the most influential languages on Balkan Romani but other languages, such as Armenian, have also influenced it. Part of the substrate of Balkan Romani appears to be derived from medieval northern Indian languages. Sepe%C4%8Dides Romani Sepečides Romani , also known as Sevlengere Roma ( lit.   ' basket-weaving Roma ' ),

3154-694: The Great attacked the coastal cities of the Aegean after conquering the capital of Lydia . As a result, Old Smyrna was destroyed in 545 BC. Alexander the Great re-founded the city at a new location beyond the Meles River around 340 BC. Alexander had defeated the Persians in several battles and finally the Emperor Darius III himself at Issus in 333 BC. Old Smyrna on a small hill by the sea

3237-665: The Muslims who adopted the Orthodox religion; those who remained Muslim went to Turkey. Many of the families that left Saloniki but remained in Greece settled in the Volos area and became Greek Orthodox. The children of these families speak Romani as their first language, followed by Greek. The others who were more inclined towards Turkish and the Muslim religion and who moved to Turkey speak only Turkish as their mother tongue . Some of

3320-681: The Rombase of the University of Graz , "they all spoke Greek, some of them also Turkish, fluently." The Sevlengere Roma people lived in communities in Greece (primarily in the Chalkidike peninsula ) and later in Turkey. They share a linguistic variation of Balkan Romani. During the population exchange between Greece and Turkey , the Christian and Greek Sepečides remained in Greece, as did

3403-669: The additional profession of carpet trade, unlike their Roma relatives in Izmir. In Menemen , some Sepečides still make baskets. In Anamur , Edremit , Düzce and Kozan , the descendants of the Sepečides also weave baskets. Some settled in East Thrace and Evreşe at Gelibolu after 1923 and still make baskets. Some descendants of the former Sepetçiler ( lit.   ' basketmakers ' ) in Istanbul became flower sellers or musicians. A group of Sepetçiler settled in

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3486-474: The air temperature can climb as high as 40 °C (104 °F) from June to September; however, the high temperatures are usually between 30 and 36 °C (86 and 97 °F). Etesian winds ( Turkish : meltem , Greek : μελτέμι meltemi ) of the Aegean Sea occur regularly in the Gulf and city of İzmir. Standing on Mount Yamanlar , the tomb of Tantalus was excavated by Charles Texier in 1835 and

3569-409: The benefits of renting out eight-floor apartment blocks built to replace former single-family houses, proved especially disastrous for the urban landscape. Modern İzmir is growing in several directions at the same time. The north-western corridor extending to Aliağa brings together both mass housing projects, including villa-type projects and intensive industrial area, including an oil refinery . In

3652-753: The campaigns against Cüneyd, the Ottomans were assisted by the forces of the Knights Hospitaller who pressed the Sultan to return the port castle to them. However, the sultan refused to make this concession, despite the resulting tensions between the two camps, and he gave the Hospitallers permission to build a castle (the present-day Bodrum Castle ) in Petronium ( Bodrum ) instead. In a landward-looking arrangement somewhat against its nature,

3735-435: The capital of Greece. The Ottoman ruling class of that era referred to the city as Infidel Smyrna ( Gavur İzmir) due to its strong Greek presence. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I , the victors had, for a time, intended to carve up large parts of Anatolia into respective zones of influence and offered the western regions of Turkey to Greece under the Treaty of Sèvres . On 15 May 1919,

3818-596: The central government in Ankara and regularly fell short of government subsidies, and the city absorbed huge waves of immigration from inland Anatolia , causing a population explosion . Today, it is not surprising that many inhabitants of İzmir (similar to residents of other prominent Turkish cities) look back with nostalgia to a cozier, more manageable city, which came to an end in the last few decades. The Floor Ownership Law of 1965 ( Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu ), allowing and encouraging arrangements between house or land proprietors and building contractors by which each would share

3901-531: The city and its present-day dependencies became an Ottoman sanjak ( sub-province ) either inside the larger vilayet ( province ) of Aydın part of the eyalet of Anatolia , with its capital in Kütahya or in "Cezayir" (i.e. "Islands" referring to "the Aegean Islands "). In the 15th century, two notable events for the city were a surprise Venetian raid in 1475 and the arrival of Sephardic Jews from Spain after 1492; they later made İzmir one of their principal urban centers in Ottoman lands. İzmir may have been

3984-420: The city by the early 17th century (1619 for the French Consulate, 1621 for the British), serving as trade centers for their nations. Each consulate had its own quay, where the ships under their flag would anchor. The long campaign for the conquest of Crete (22 years between 1648 and 1669) also considerably enhanced İzmir's position within the Ottoman realm since the city served as a port of dispatch and supply for

4067-399: The city of İzmir had a population of 2,965,900, while İzmir Province had a total population of 4,367,251. Its built-up (or metro) area was home to 3,209,179 inhabitants. It extends along the outlying waters of the Gulf of İzmir and inland to the north across the Gediz River Delta ; to the east along an alluvial plain created by several small streams; and to slightly more rugged terrain in

4150-673: The city of İzmir. The city of İzmir is composed of several metropolitan districts . Of these, the district of Konak corresponds to historical İzmir, with this district's area having constituted the city's central "İzmir Municipality" (Turkish: İzmir Belediyesi ) until 1984. With the formation of the "İzmir Metropolitan Municipality" (Turkish: İzmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi ), the city of İzmir at first grouped together its eleven (initially nine) urban districts – namely Balçova , Bayraklı , Bornova , Buca , Çiğli , Gaziemir , Güzelbahçe , Karabağlar , Karşıyaka , Konak , and Narlıdere – and later consolidated them with an additional nine of

4233-449: The city on 9 September 1922 and the slaughter of Armenian and Greek males, who were then sent to the so-called labour battalions . The city was, once again, gradually rebuilt after the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. In 2020, the city was damaged by the Aegean Sea earthquake and tsunami , which was the deadliest seismic event of that year. 117 people died and 1,034 more were injured in Turkey, all but one of whom were from

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4316-414: The city was called Smyrna into the 20th century. Izmir (sometimes İzmir ) was adopted in English and most foreign languages after Turkey adopted the Latin alphabet in 1928 and urged other countries to use the city's Turkish name. However, the historic name Smyrna is still used today in some languages, such as Italian ( Smirne ), and Catalan , Portuguese , and Spanish ( Esmirna ). The city

4399-413: The city's historic barracks ( Sarı Kışla — the Yellow Barracks ), for refusing to shout " Zito o Venizelos " ("Long Live Venizelos "). The Greeks, on the other hand, have cited the numerous atrocities committed by the Turkish soldiers against the Greeks and Armenians (locals or hinterland refugees) in İzmir. These include the lynching of the Orthodox Metropolitan Chrysostomos following the recapture of

4482-408: The city's name is the Aeolic Greek Μύρρα Mýrrha , corresponding to the later Ionian and Attic Σμύρνα ( Smýrna ) or Σμύρνη ( Smýrnē ), both presumably descendants of a Proto-Greek form * Smúrnā . Some would see in the city's name a reference to the name of an Amazon called Smyrna said to have seduced Theseus , leading him to name the city in her honor. Others link the name to

4565-416: The crown of life" (Revelation 2:10). Given the importance of the city, Roman emperors who came to Anatolia also visited Smyrna. In early AD 124, Emperor Hadrian visited Smyrna on his journeys across the Empire and possibly Caracalla came in 214–215. Smyrna was a fine city with stone-paved streets. In AD 178, the city was devastated by an earthquake . Emperor Marcus Aurelius contributed greatly to

4648-428: The districts of Bornova and Buca . One of the most prominent present-day figures of the community is Caroline Giraud Koç , wife of the renowned Turkish industrialist Mustafa Koç , whose company, Koç Holding , is one of the largest family-owned industrial conglomerates in the world. İzmir once had a large Greek and Armenian community, but after the great fire of 1922 and the end of the Greco-Turkish War, many of

4731-404: The east and the north-east, urban development ends near the natural barriers constituted respectively by the Belkahve ( Mount Nif ) and Sabuncubeli ( Mount Yamanlar - Mount Sipylus ) passes. But the settlements both above Bornova , inside the metropolitan zone, and around Kemalpaşa and Ulucak , outside the metropolitan zone, see mass housing and secondary residences development. More recently,

4814-430: The events that took place in İzmir, such as the fire, probably the greatest disaster the city has ever experienced, continue to influence the psyches of the two nations to this day. The Turks have claimed that the Greek army landing was marked from the very first day by the "first bullet" fired on Greek detachments by the journalist Hasan Tahsin and the bayonetting to death of Colonel Fethi Bey and his unarmed soldiers in

4897-408: The five Western Anatolian Beyliks in the winter of the same year he had come to the throne. In 1402, however, Timur ( Tamerlane ) won the Battle of Ankara against the Ottomans , putting a serious check on the Ottoman state for the two following decades and handing back the territories of most of the Beyliks to their former ruling dynasties. Timur attacked and destroyed Smyrna and was responsible for

4980-505: The grammar of the two languages depending on geography. Balkan Romani has compartmentalized grammar originating from Turkish verbal paradigms along with some Greek influence. Much of the morphology of the language has Greek and Turkish origins, which is why the language is viewed by many professionals as a "mixed" language and thus it is hard to see where one language ends and the other begins. All Romani dialects use Greek derived nominal endings, masculine nouns and loan nouns. The morphology of

5063-477: The head of a gulf running down in a deep indentation, midway along the western Anatolian coast, İzmir has been one of the principal mercantile cities of the Mediterranean Sea for much of its history. Until the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey , İzmir had a very large Greek population. It hosted the Mediterranean Games in 1971 and the World University Games (Universiade) in 2005 . The city participated in Climathon in 2019. In ancient Anatolia,

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5146-493: The highest wind speed of 127.1 km/h (79.0 mph) was recorded on March 29, 1970. Maximum temperatures during the winter months are mostly between 10 and 16 °C (50 and 61 °F). Although it is rare, snow can fall in İzmir from December to February, which usually stays for a few hours rather than a whole day or more. The record 32 cm (13 in) of snow depth was recorded on January 31, 1945. Frost does occasionally occur at night almost every winter. During summer,

5229-400: The look of a global metropolis with a cosmopolitan city center. According to the 1893 Ottoman census, more than half of the population was Turkish, with 133,800 Greeks, 9,200 Armenians, 17,200 Jews, and 54,600 foreign nationals. According to author Katherine Flemming, by 1919, Smyrna's 150,000 Greeks made up just under half of the population, outnumbering the Turks in the city two to one, while

5312-402: The lower castle in a surprise attack in the Smyrniote crusades . A sixty-year period of uneasy cohabitation between the two powers, the Beyliks holding the upper castle and the Knights the lower, followed by Umur Bey's death in 1348. The upper city of İzmir was captured from its Aydinid rulers by the Ottomans for the first time in 1389 during the reign of Bayezid I , who led his armies toward

5395-400: The massacre of most of the Christian population, which constituted the vast majority in Smyrna. In 1415, Mehmet I took back İzmir for the Ottomans for the second time. With the death of the last bey of Aydın, İzmiroğlu Cüneyd Bey , in 1426 the city passed fully under Ottoman control. İzmir's first Ottoman governor was Alexander , a converted son of the Bulgarian Shishman dynasty . During

5478-430: The meantime, the Ottomans had allowed İzmir's inner bay dominated by the port castle to silt up progressively (the location of the present-day Kemeraltı bazaar zone) and the port castle ceased to be of use. In 1770, the Ottoman fleet was destroyed by Russian forces at the Battle of Çeşme , located near the city. This triggered fanatical Muslim groups to proceed to the massacre of c. 1,500 local Greeks. Later, in 1797

5561-463: The metropolitan area displays growth, especially along the western corridor, encouraged by the Çeşme motorway and extending to districts outside the city of İzmir proper, such as Seferihisar and Urla . The population of the city is predominantly Muslim, but it was predominantly non-Muslim up to the earlier quarter of the 20th century. İzmir is also home to Turkey's second largest Jewish community after Istanbul, numbering about 2,500. The community

5644-587: The name of a locality called Ti-smurna is mentioned in some of the Level II tablets from the Assyrian colony in Kültepe (first half of the 2nd millennium BC ), with the prefix ti- identifying a proper name, although it is not established with certainty that this name refers to modern-day İzmir. The modern name İzmir is the Turkish rendering of the Greek name Smyrna ( / ˈ s m ɜːr n ə / SMUR -nə ; Greek : Σμύρνη , romanized :  Smýrni/Smýrnē ). In medieval times , Westerners used forms like Smire , Zmirra , Esmira , Ismira , which

5727-444: The northeast of the inner gulf. In connection with the silt brought by the streams which join the sea along the coastline, the settlement to form later the core of "Old Smyrna" was founded on the slopes of the same mountain, on a hill ( then a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a small isthmus ) in the present-day neighborhood of Tepekule in Bayraklı . The Bayraklı settlement is thought to have stretched back in time as far as

5810-509: The old settlements where they once lived include Tralangere (Trala, a village near Saloniki) and Kardičakere (also known as Karditsa , in northern Greece). In 1920, migrants wishing to avoid the Greco-Turkish War presented themselves as either Greeks or Turks and alternated between using two flags to identify themselves. The Sepečides Romani who were Greek or converted to the Greek Orthodox faith and remained in Greece after 1923 moved south to settle in Volos . Their families primarily speak

5893-408: The pre-European lexicon. Ultimately, it is hard to trace the definite origin of all the words because the words of Balkan Romani originate from many sources and the sources of those languages creates a complex puzzle. Turkish grammar plays a large role in Balkan Romani. The use of Turkish conjugations is widely embedded within Balkan Romani and oftentimes, it is difficult to tell the difference between

5976-609: The present-day territory of Turkey went from İzmir. A 130 km (81 mi) İzmir- Aydın railway was started in 1856 and finished in 1867, a year later than the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway , itself started in 1863. In 1865 the population was estimated by the British ( Hyde Clarke ) at 180,000 with minorities of 80,000 Greeks, 8,000 Armenians and 10,000 Jews. The wide arc of the Smyrna-Cassaba line advancing in

6059-460: The province's districts outside the city proper. In 2013, the passing of Act 6360 established all thirty of İzmir Province's districts as part of İzmir's metropolitan area. The period after the 1960s and the 1970s saw another blow to the fabric of İzmir, when local administrations tended to neglect İzmir's traditional values and landmarks. For many inhabitants, this was as serious as the 1922 fire . Some administrators were not always in tune with

6142-532: The quay started on 24 September when the first Greek ships entered the harbor under the supervision of Allied destroyers. Some 150,000 to 200,000 Greeks were evacuated in total. The remaining Greeks were expelled to Greece in 1923, as part of the population exchange between Greece and Turkey , a stipulation of the Treaty of Lausanne , which formally ended the Greco-Turkish War. The war, and especially

6225-662: The rebuilding of the city. During this period the agora was restored. Many of the works of architecture from the city's pre-Turkish period date from this period. After the Roman Empire was divided into two distinct entities, Smyrna became a territory of the Eastern Roman Empire . The city kept its status as a notable religious center in the early Byzantine period, but never returned to the Roman levels of prosperity. The Turkic peoples first captured Smyrna under

6308-569: The son of the founder of the Beylik of Aydın who first took the upper fort of Mount Pagos (thereafter called Kadifekale ), and then the lower port castle of Neon Kastron (called St. Peter by the Genoese and as "Ok Kalesi" by the Turks). As Tzachas had done two centuries before, Umur Bey used the city as a base for naval raids. In 1344, a coalition of forces coordinated by Pope Clement VI took back

6391-605: The south. İzmir has more than 3,000 years of recorded urban history , and up to 8,500 years of history as a human settlement since the Neolithic period. In classical antiquity the city was known as Smyrna – a name which remained in use in English and various other languages until around 1930, when government efforts led the original Greek name to be gradually phased out internationally in favor of its Turkish counterpart İzmir . Lying on an advantageous location at

6474-606: The southern corridor towards Gaziemir yet another important growth trend is observed, contributed to by the Aegean Free Zone, light industry, the airport and mass housing projects. The presence of the Tahtalı Dam, built to provide drinking water, and its protected zone did not check urban spread here, which has offshoots in cooperatives outside the metropolitan area as far south as the Ayrancılar– Torbalı axis. To

6557-804: The troops. İzmir is also one of the only Ottoman cities to have a (maritime) flag . [REDACTED] Roman Empire 133 BC–395 [REDACTED] Byzantine Empire 395–1076 Seljuk Empire 1076–1081 Chaka Bey 1081–1097 [REDACTED] Byzantine Empire 1097–1204 [REDACTED] Knights Hospitaller 1204–1209 Empire of Nicaea 1209–1261 [REDACTED] Byzantine Empire 1261–1330 [REDACTED] Beylik of Aydin 1330–1344 [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Knights Hospitaller and Beylik of Aydin 1344–1402 [REDACTED] Timurid Empire 1402–1405 [REDACTED] Beylik of Aydin 1405–1425 [REDACTED] Ottoman Empire 1425–1919 [REDACTED] Kingdom of Greece 1919–1922 [REDACTED] Republic of Turkey 1922–present Despite facing

6640-638: Was built on the Hippodamian system, in which streets run north-south and east-west and intersect at right angles, in a pattern familiar in the Near East but the earliest example in a western city. The houses all faced south. The most ancient paved streets in the Ionian civilization have also been discovered in ancient Smyrna. Homer , referred to as Melesigenes meaning "Child of the Meles Brook",

6723-419: Was concentrated. By 1576, İzmir had grown to house 492 taxpayers in eight urban wards and had a number of dependent villages. This corresponded to a total population estimated between 3500 and 5000. İzmir's remarkable growth began in the late 16th century when cotton and other products of the region brought French, English, Dutch and Venetian traders here. The emergence of İzmir as a major international port by

6806-468: Was large enough only for a few thousand people. Therefore, the slopes of Mount Pagos ( Kadifekale ) were chosen for the foundation of the new city, for which Alexander is credited, and this act laid the ground for a resurgence in the city's population. In 133 BC, Eumenes III, the last king of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum , was about to die without an heir. In his will , he bequeathed his kingdom to

6889-611: Was rendered as İzmir into Turkish, originally written as ازمير with the Ottoman Turkish alphabet . The region of İzmir was situated on the southern fringes of the Yortan culture in Anatolia's prehistory, knowledge of which is almost entirely drawn from its cemeteries. In the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, it was in the western end of the extension of the still largely obscure Arzawa Kingdom, an offshoot and usually

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