Adana is the fourth largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Adana Province. It has a population of 1 130 710 (2000). NATO's Incirlik Air Base is located 12 km east of Adana.

One of the large towns of Asia Minor, about nineteen miles from the sea, Adana derives its importance from its situation as the gateway to the Cilician plain, that great flat stretch of fertile land, possibly the most productive in this part of the world, (on east side of Taurus Mountains). In Adana all the houses are flat-topped and the roofs serve as the bedrooms for the inhabitants during the hot summers. Adana was more important for its agriculture while Tarsus was the metropolis of the area. Several types of fruit are native to this area, the apricot being an example.

From Adana, crossing the Cilician plain going west, the road from Tarsus enters the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. With every foot of ascent the coolness increases, reaching an altitude of nearly 4000 feet. Then through the famous Cilician Gates, that rocky pass through which armies have coursed since history's dawn, and the caravan has arrived on the Anatolian plain.

Adana is the marketing and distribution center for an agricultural region in which cotton, wheat, barley, grapes, citrus fruits, olives, and tobacco are produced. The chief industries in the city are textile manufacturing, tanning, and the processing of wool and various foods. It is also famous for its kebab and turnip juice.

History

Adana, a modern-day city located on the right bank of the Seyhan River in the Cilician plain, was a caravan stop, river crossing, and frontier outpost protecting Asia Minor from incursions from Syria. (Tarsus was closer to the Cilician Gate.) The history of Adana is mixed with that of Tarsus; they seem to often be the same city, moving as the river changed position and the name changing over time. Adana was of little importance in ancient history; Tarsus, Ayas/Issus, and Kozan (formerly Sis) have usually been the major population and administrative centers, especially during the Kingdom of Lesser Armenia.

Adana was probably founded in 63 BC by the Roman statesman Pompey the Great. For several centuries thereafter it was a way station on a Roman military road leading to the East. The city declined in importance after the fall of the Roman Empire in AD476 but was rebuilt in the 8th century by Harun al-Rashid, caliph of Baghdad. Adana was held by Egypt from 1832 to 1840, when it was restored to Turkish rule.

Adana Massacre was the second series of large-scale massacres of Armenians to break out in the Ottoman Empire. The atrocities committed in the province of Adana in April 1909 coincided with the counter-revolution staged by supporters of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909) who had been forced to restore the Ottoman Constitution as a result of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution led by the İttihad ve Terakki (Committee of Union and Progress). A prosperous region on the Mediterranean coast encompassing the old principality of Cilicia, once an independent Armenian state between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the province of Adana had been spared the 1890's massacres. The disturbances were most severe in the city of Adana where a reported 4,437 Armenian dwellings were torched, resulting in the razing of nearly half the town and prompting some to describe the resulting inferno as a "holocaust." The outbreaks spread throughout the district and an estimated 30,000 Armenians were reported killed. While attempts at resistance in Adana proved futile, and Armenians in smaller outlying villages were brutally slaughtered, two towns inhabited mostly by Armenians organized a successful defense. Hacın (Hajen in Armenian) in the Cilician Mountains withstood a siege, while the 10,000 Armenians of Dörtyol (Chorkmarzban in Armenian) held off 7,000 Turks who had surrounded their town and cut off its water supply.

Under the years of The Assyrian Genocide Adana was home to many assyrian refugees who came from the area of Tur Abdin. Before they moved on to the new republic Syria they managed to have a school full with the spirit of the Assyrian awareness.

Places to visit

Local points of interest include a great stone bridge, built in part during the reign (6th century) of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and the ruins of a castle dating from 782.

Education

• Çukurova University

External links

• Pictures of the city