İzmir is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is the second largest urban agglomeration on the Aegean Sea after Athens, Greece. It hosted the Mediterranean Games in 1971 and the World University Games in 2005. In March 2008, it submitted its bid to hosting the BIE Universal Expo 2015, but it was won by Milan, Italy.
About İzmir in brief
İzmir is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is the second largest urban agglomeration on the Aegean Sea after Athens, Greece. In classical antiquity the city was known as Smyrna. It hosted the Mediterranean Games in 1971 and the World University Games in 2005. In March 2008, it submitted its bid to hosting the BIE Universal Expo 2015, but it was won by Milan, Italy. The name is the Turkish rendering of the original Greek name Smyrne. In medieval times, it was written as Smiremira, which was rendered into modern Turkish by the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. The city has over 3000 years of recorded urban history and up to 8,500 years of history as a human settlement since the Neolithic period. It has been one of the principal mercantile cities of the Mediterranean Sea for much of its history. Its port is Turkey’s primary port for exports in terms of the freight handled and its free zone, a Turkish-U.S. joint-venture established in 1990, is the leader among the twenty in Turkey. Politically, İzMir is considered a stronghold of Kemalism and the Republican People’s Party. Izmir’s port is also Turkey’s main export port for grain and other agricultural products. It is also a hub for tourism, especially in the region of the Gediz River Delta, which runs through the center of the city.
In 2019, the city had a population of 2,972,900, while the province had a total population of 4,367,251. It also incorporates the nearby ancient cities of Ephesus, Pergamon, Sardis and Klazomenai, and centers of international tourism such as Kuşadası, Çeşme, Mordoğan and Foça. In 2013, the passing of Act 6360 established all thirty of � zmir Province’s districts as part of �urzmir’s metropolitan area. The district of Konak corresponds to historical İZmir, with this district’s area having constituted the city’s central Municipality until 1984. It later consolidated with an additional nine of the province’s districts outside the city proper – and later consolidated them with another nine outside the province proper – in 2013. The city of is composed of several metropolitan districts, including the districts of Balçova, Bayraklı, Bornova, Buca, Gaziemir, Güzelbahçe, Karabağlar, Karşıyaka, Konak, and Narlıdere – and the district of Buka. It was founded by Greeks in the 4th century BC, and was named after the Greek city of Smyrnea. The current Turkish name for the city is “Smyrne” or “Smirem” in Greek, which means “smirne” in Turkish.
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This page is based on the article İzmir published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
