Turgutlu
Encyclopedia
Turgutlu is a very large town and district of Manisa Province
in the Aegean
region of Turkey
. According to the 2009 census, population of the district is 140,753 of which 115930 live in the city of Turgutlu.The district covers an area of 473 km² (183 sq mi) and the city lies at an elevation of 68 m (223 ft). The district is the most populous after the province center of Manisa
in its province and it is the second most populous district center, i.e. excluding province centers, in Turkey's Aegean Region
.
The name derives from the name of the Turkish
clan
of "Turgutlu" (also cited as "Turgut" or "Turgutoğlu"), recorded as having provided the main support to the Beylik
of Karaman during their time of existence and mentioned in historical records as an important political entity as late as the 18th century Iran
. Their settlement in Turgutlu region is thought to have taken place some time in the 15th century at the same time as the Ottoman unification of Anatolia
which resulted in the demise of Karamanids. That nearby Manisa was the center where Ottoman shahzade
s (crown prince
s) received their education must have placed the clan once again in a non-negligible position in their relations this time with the Ottoman dynasty.
The city was alternatively called Kasaba (often spelled as Casaba or Cassaba in the 19th century Western sources also), which simply means "the town". People of Turgutlu still often use the term "Kasabalı" to define themselves and despite the general signification of the word (Kasaba being "the town", Kasabalı means "the townspeople"), people across Turkey usually understand when Turgutlu is being specifically referred to.
The term Casaba melons derive from the name of the city, an echo of its 18th-19th century past when it was an important regional trade center and hub, located in the middle of a fertile alluvial plain and with access to outside markets through nearby İzmir.
. Turgutlu center has an annual population increase rate of 2,41 per cent and the district as a whole 1,8 per cent which places its region right after the central district of the province seat of Manisa. Turgutlu center is at a distance of only 31 km to Manisa, to which it depends administratively, and at a distance of 50 km to the international portuary center of İzmir. Its closeness to these two metropolitan centers both of which have a deep and rooted history marked Turgutlu's destiny since its foundation in the 15th century. Today, the intense industrial activities in the even nearer İzmir district of Kemalpaşa also find considerable repercussions in Turgutlu, which itself has a reputation of being one of the prominent centers of soil industry in Turkey.
There are 44 primary schools and 14 schools providing intermediate education in Turgutlu district, bringing together 1,189 teachers and 28,767 students. There is also a higher professional professional school, a department of Celal Bayar University
, at the district center. The state hospital at Turgutlu center has a bed capacity of 250, and there are also eleven health centers, all corresponding to a health professionals corpus of 370, 135 of whom are doctors.
At fifty-six per cent, Turgutlu district has the highest proportion of agricultural lands across Manisa Province districts in its territory, while the forest lands covering a total area close to twenty thousand hectares, are also of considerable extent.
For more information about Turgutlu http://turgutlulu.com can visit the web site.
(principally vegetables and fruits) in Turkey, as well as to BMC (Turkey)
, the Turkish branch of the motor vehicle giant BMC
, active principally in commercial vehicles, truck
s and bus
es. The town's industrial sector as a whole displays as high a degree of dynamism as its agricultural production, with many small- and medium-sized enterprises active in various fields. Also Seramiksan, one of the leading tile manufacturers of Turkey specialized in the production of ceramic wall and floor tiles, glazed and technical porcelain tiles, has their production installations in Turgutlu.
Experimental mining of nickel
laterites by using a heap leach process in Mount Çal near Turgutlu started in 2005 by a Turkish subsidiary of European Nickel PLC. The reserves are estimated to be 33 million tons of ore at 1.13% Nickel and 0.08% cobalt content. The planned development of a nickel mine and processing plant could deeply influence the district's economy with a potential to become one of the most important investments in Turkey's Aegean Region.
For more information about Turgutlu http://turgutlulu.com can visit the web site.
in 1863 and which arrived in Kasaba in 1866. This railway was the third started within the territory of the Ottoman Empire
at the time and the first finished within the present-day territory of Turkey.
Instead of being laid along the direct route eastwards from İzmir to Turgutlu, about fifty kilometers in length, the line built drew a wide arc advancing first to the north-west from İzmir, through its Karşıyaka
suburb to whose foundation it contributed greatly, and curves eastwards only from Menemen
on, crossing the former sanjak
and the present-day province center of Manisa
to join Turgutlu from the north. Belkahve Pass
between Mount Nif
and Mount Sipylus
on the direct road from İzmir and Turgutlu must have been judged too difficult for a track at the time. This railway was later extended further eastwards reaching a total length exceeding seven hundred kilometers but the operating company preserved the name Smyrna Cassaba. The first concession under the name was granted to a locally based English
entrepreneur named Edward Price, who founded the company and built the line, and sold it in 1893 to the Franco
-Belgian
group Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, which extended it. . The line was nationalized
in 1934 by the young Republic of Turkey in the frame of a general move started in the 1920s regarding Turkey's railways.
The town was made into a kaza (district center) in 1868. During the final years of the Ottoman Empire, Kasaba was already a large town whose population well exceeded ten thousand people. During the 1910s, Kasaba was recorded by sources such as G. Sotiriadis (1918) and S. Anagiostopoulou (1997) as having a Greek population averaging at around one sixth of the total, between 3500 to 6000, in a subdistrict aggregate of thirty-five thousand and a center town population of around fourteen thousand.
According to a number of sources, the retreating Greek army carried out a scorched-earth policy while fleeing from Anatolia during the final phase of the war. James Loder Park, the U.S. Vice-Consul in Constantinople at the time, who toured much of the devastated area immediately after the Greek evacuation, described the situation in the surrounding cities and towns of İzmir he has seen, as follows:
According to a report of the Consul Park 90% of the buildings of the town were destroyed, as result of organized operations accompanied by several attrocities.
, the former (till August 2006) Chief of Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces
is from Turgutlu.
Osman Özsümer, known as Helvaci Osman, the founder of Turgutlu's oldest business which exist since 1900. His family business Özsümer Gida has been producing Halva
, a special kind of sweet made of sesam paste.
Manisa Province
Manisa Province is a province in western Turkey. Its neighboring provinces are İzmir to the west, Aydın to the south, Denizli to the south east, Uşak to the east, Kütahya to the north east, and Balıkesir to the north...
in the Aegean
Aegean Region
Aegean Region , is one of the 7 census-defined regions of Turkey, and in Western Asia.It is located in the west part of the country: bounded by Aegean Sea on the west; Marmara Region on the north;...
region of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. According to the 2009 census, population of the district is 140,753 of which 115930 live in the city of Turgutlu.The district covers an area of 473 km² (183 sq mi) and the city lies at an elevation of 68 m (223 ft). The district is the most populous after the province center of Manisa
Manisa
Manisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in...
in its province and it is the second most populous district center, i.e. excluding province centers, in Turkey's Aegean Region
Aegean Region
Aegean Region , is one of the 7 census-defined regions of Turkey, and in Western Asia.It is located in the west part of the country: bounded by Aegean Sea on the west; Marmara Region on the north;...
.
The name derives from the name of the Turkish
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
of "Turgutlu" (also cited as "Turgut" or "Turgutoğlu"), recorded as having provided the main support to the Beylik
Bey
Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...
of Karaman during their time of existence and mentioned in historical records as an important political entity as late as the 18th century Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. Their settlement in Turgutlu region is thought to have taken place some time in the 15th century at the same time as the Ottoman unification of Anatolia
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
which resulted in the demise of Karamanids. That nearby Manisa was the center where Ottoman shahzade
Shahzade
Shahzade may refer to:*Shahzade, a prince of the Iran royal house*The son or male line descendant of an Ottoman Sultan...
s (crown prince
Crown Prince
A crown prince or crown princess is the heir or heiress apparent to the throne in a royal or imperial monarchy. The wife of a crown prince is also titled crown princess....
s) received their education must have placed the clan once again in a non-negligible position in their relations this time with the Ottoman dynasty.
The city was alternatively called Kasaba (often spelled as Casaba or Cassaba in the 19th century Western sources also), which simply means "the town". People of Turgutlu still often use the term "Kasabalı" to define themselves and despite the general signification of the word (Kasaba being "the town", Kasabalı means "the townspeople"), people across Turkey usually understand when Turgutlu is being specifically referred to.
The term Casaba melons derive from the name of the city, an echo of its 18th-19th century past when it was an important regional trade center and hub, located in the middle of a fertile alluvial plain and with access to outside markets through nearby İzmir.
General features
There are two townships with their own municipalities within the district (Urganlı and Derbent) and 37 villages and nine village dependencies or hamletsHamlets
Hamlets is the name of an open source system for generating web-pages originally developed by René Pawlitzek at IBM...
. Turgutlu center has an annual population increase rate of 2,41 per cent and the district as a whole 1,8 per cent which places its region right after the central district of the province seat of Manisa. Turgutlu center is at a distance of only 31 km to Manisa, to which it depends administratively, and at a distance of 50 km to the international portuary center of İzmir. Its closeness to these two metropolitan centers both of which have a deep and rooted history marked Turgutlu's destiny since its foundation in the 15th century. Today, the intense industrial activities in the even nearer İzmir district of Kemalpaşa also find considerable repercussions in Turgutlu, which itself has a reputation of being one of the prominent centers of soil industry in Turkey.
There are 44 primary schools and 14 schools providing intermediate education in Turgutlu district, bringing together 1,189 teachers and 28,767 students. There is also a higher professional professional school, a department of Celal Bayar University
Celal Bayar University
Celal Bayar University or ' is a state university located in Manisa, Turkey. It is one of the third largest universities in Aegean Region with close to 25,000 student body and 1,156 faculty members.- History :...
, at the district center. The state hospital at Turgutlu center has a bed capacity of 250, and there are also eleven health centers, all corresponding to a health professionals corpus of 370, 135 of whom are doctors.
At fifty-six per cent, Turgutlu district has the highest proportion of agricultural lands across Manisa Province districts in its territory, while the forest lands covering a total area close to twenty thousand hectares, are also of considerable extent.
For more information about Turgutlu http://turgutlulu.com can visit the web site.
Industry
Reconstructed from the scratch as of 1920s, modern Turgutlu is, in addition to a productive agricvultural sector, also an important industrial base structured under a Chamber of Industry founded in 1926. It is home to the production installations of Tukaş, one of the most prominent producers of canned foodFood
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
(principally vegetables and fruits) in Turkey, as well as to BMC (Turkey)
BMC (Turkey)
BMC is one of the largest commercial vehicle manufacturers in Turkey.It was formed in 1964 by Ergün Özakat in partnership with the British Motor Corporation in İzmir....
, the Turkish branch of the motor vehicle giant BMC
British Motor Corporation
The British Motor Corporation, or commonly known as BMC was a vehicle manufacturer from United Kingdom, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation in 1952...
, active principally in commercial vehicles, truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
s and bus
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...
es. The town's industrial sector as a whole displays as high a degree of dynamism as its agricultural production, with many small- and medium-sized enterprises active in various fields. Also Seramiksan, one of the leading tile manufacturers of Turkey specialized in the production of ceramic wall and floor tiles, glazed and technical porcelain tiles, has their production installations in Turgutlu.
Experimental mining of nickel
Nickel
Nickel is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel belongs to the transition metals and is hard and ductile...
laterites by using a heap leach process in Mount Çal near Turgutlu started in 2005 by a Turkish subsidiary of European Nickel PLC. The reserves are estimated to be 33 million tons of ore at 1.13% Nickel and 0.08% cobalt content. The planned development of a nickel mine and processing plant could deeply influence the district's economy with a potential to become one of the most important investments in Turkey's Aegean Region.
For more information about Turgutlu http://turgutlulu.com can visit the web site.
İzmir-Kasaba Railway
The town was an important regional trade center and hub already since the 18th century. It acquired further importance once it became the first terminus of the 93 km. Smyrna Cassaba Railway whose construction was started from İzmirIzmir
Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...
in 1863 and which arrived in Kasaba in 1866. This railway was the third started within the territory of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
at the time and the first finished within the present-day territory of Turkey.
Instead of being laid along the direct route eastwards from İzmir to Turgutlu, about fifty kilometers in length, the line built drew a wide arc advancing first to the north-west from İzmir, through its Karşıyaka
Karsiyaka
Karşıyaka is a district of İzmir Province in Turkey. It is part of the Greater Metropolitan Area of İzmir, in other words a metropolitan district, the second largest after Konak in terms of population, and it is almost entirely urbanized at the rate of 99,9 per cent, with corresponding high levels...
suburb to whose foundation it contributed greatly, and curves eastwards only from Menemen
Menemen
Menemen is a district of İzmir Province in Turkey as well as the district's central town. The district extends on a fertile plain formed by the alluvial soil carried by the Gediz River...
on, crossing the former sanjak
Sanjak
Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire. Sanjak, and the variant spellings sandjak, sanjaq, and sinjaq, are English transliterations of the Turkish word sancak, meaning district, banner, or flag...
and the present-day province center of Manisa
Manisa
Manisa is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in...
to join Turgutlu from the north. Belkahve Pass
Belkahve Pass
Belkahve is a mountain pass in İzmir Province, Turkey.Belkahve is situated east of İzmir on the highway connecting İzmir to hinterland. Its coordinates are and the maximum altitude is . As the average altitude of Turkey is over , Belkahve is considered a low-altitude pass. It is the first...
between Mount Nif
Mount Nif
For other uses of the same name. see NifMount Nif is a mountain in the district of Kemalpaşa, towering over the district center , located immediately to the east of the city of İzmir, in western Turkey...
and Mount Sipylus
Mount Sipylus
Mount Spil , the ancient Mount Sipylus , is a mountain rich in legends and history in Manisa Province, Turkey, in what used to be the heartland of the Lydians and what is now Turkey's Aegean Region....
on the direct road from İzmir and Turgutlu must have been judged too difficult for a track at the time. This railway was later extended further eastwards reaching a total length exceeding seven hundred kilometers but the operating company preserved the name Smyrna Cassaba. The first concession under the name was granted to a locally based English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
entrepreneur named Edward Price, who founded the company and built the line, and sold it in 1893 to the Franco
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
group Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, which extended it. . The line was nationalized
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
in 1934 by the young Republic of Turkey in the frame of a general move started in the 1920s regarding Turkey's railways.
The town was made into a kaza (district center) in 1868. During the final years of the Ottoman Empire, Kasaba was already a large town whose population well exceeded ten thousand people. During the 1910s, Kasaba was recorded by sources such as G. Sotiriadis (1918) and S. Anagiostopoulou (1997) as having a Greek population averaging at around one sixth of the total, between 3500 to 6000, in a subdistrict aggregate of thirty-five thousand and a center town population of around fourteen thousand.
Turgutlu during the Turkish War of Independence
Turgutlu remained under Greek occupation between 29 May 1919 and 7 September 1922. The most bitter blow suffered by the town has been the fire started by the retreating Greek army on 5 September 1922, and which has lasted for two whole days, destroying 6127 buildings in a total of 6328, the historic Pasha Mosque, and the 20000 manuscript books preserved in the town library, as well as at the very least a thousand human lives (based on the corpses that could be counted). The survival of another historical monument, the Hacı Zeynel Mosque and of the surrounding small agglomeration is locally still interpreted as divine intervention.According to a number of sources, the retreating Greek army carried out a scorched-earth policy while fleeing from Anatolia during the final phase of the war. James Loder Park, the U.S. Vice-Consul in Constantinople at the time, who toured much of the devastated area immediately after the Greek evacuation, described the situation in the surrounding cities and towns of İzmir he has seen, as follows:
" Cassaba (present day TurgutluTurgutluTurgutlu is a very large town and district of Manisa Province in the Aegean region of Turkey. According to the 2009 census, population of the district is 140,753 of which 115930 live in the city of Turgutlu.The district covers an area of and the city lies at an elevation of...
) was a town of 40,000 souls, 3,000 of whom were non-Muslims. Of these 37,000 Turks only 6,000 could be accounted for among the living, while 1,000 Turks were known to have been shot or burned to death. Of the 2,000 buildings that constituted the city, only 200 remained standing. Ample testimony was available to the effect that the city was systematically destroyed by Greek soldiers, assisted by a number of Greek and Armenian civilians. Kerosene and gasoline were freely used to make the destruction more certain, rapid and complete."
According to a report of the Consul Park 90% of the buildings of the town were destroyed, as result of organized operations accompanied by several attrocities.
Notable people from Turgutlu
Gen. Hilmi ÖzkökHilmi Özkök
General Hilmi Özkök was the 24th Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces. He took up that post on August 28, 2002 and served until August 30, 2006 when he retired and was succeeded by General Yaşar Büyükanıt.Özkök has expressed support for Turkey's alignment with the European Union,...
, the former (till August 2006) Chief of Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces
Turkish Armed Forces
The Turkish Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of Turkey. They consist of the Army, the Navy , and the Air Force...
is from Turgutlu.
Osman Özsümer, known as Helvaci Osman, the founder of Turgutlu's oldest business which exist since 1900. His family business Özsümer Gida has been producing Halva
Halva
Halva refers to many types of dense, sweet confections, served across the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Malta and the Jewish world.The term halva ,...
, a special kind of sweet made of sesam paste.