Sanliurfa

Urfa stands at a point where the plains of Mesopotamia make an indent into the mountains of Anatolia. So it’s on a trade route and has been settled for thousands of years, with a long list of city names awarded by successive conquerors. Edessa was the name assigned in 303 BC by the Seleucids, meaning abundant water. In 1031 AD it was the last major capture by the declining Byzantines, and its fall in 1144 prompted the Second Crusade (a debacle in the east, though they gained Portugal.) It came under Ottoman control in 1517, by which time Urfa was the city’s usual name. It fell on hard times by 1700, and especially after the Suez Canal opened in 1869, when sea trade supplanted the plod of camels along overland routes.

The popular response to economic decline was to massacre the city’s ethnic minorities, so the Armenian population of 20,000 was slain or deported in a series of atrocities culminating in 1915. Their place was taken by ethnic Turks fleeing from Russian-occupied Armenia. When World War One ended with the defeat of the Ottomans, the initial peace treaty awarded Urfa to French-controlled Syria. A local militia chased out the French occupying forces on 11 April 1920 – that’s 11 Nisan in Turkish, a date commemorated in placenames. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne re-assigned Urfa to Turkey.

The city of Antep 150 km west was honoured as Gaziantep (Gazi = heroic) for its part in throwing off French occupation, and the citizens of Urfa felt they deserved similar kudos. Their petitioning succeeded in 1984 when it was renamed Şanlıurfa (Şanlı = glorious). So anything official uses that name, while locals still call it Urfa, and others hedge their bets by displaying it as Ş. Urfa.

Tourism and pilgrimage centre on Urfa’s association with the prophet Abraham. The town otherwise makes a living from trades such as shoes and leatherwork, quarrying, and pistachios. It’s also been blighted by the wars in Syria, and has a large refugee population.

Most transport websites recognise Urfa as the town name, but a minority insist on Şanlıurfa. The Ş character is seldom available on non-Turkish keyboards, so you have to cut-and-paste.

By plane:

1 Şanlıurfa GAP Airport has several flights a day from Istanbul (both IST and SAW) and daily from Ankara and Izmir. It has the usual facilities including car hire. GAP stands for the southeastern Anatolia irrigation project, and the airport is 36 km north of city centre on D-885 / E99 towards Siverek.

Havaş bus meets all flights and runs downtown, 45 min. Outbound it leaves two hours before flights from opposite Nevali Hotel, 2 km north of Old Town (see Sleep).

By bus:

Urfa is on Highway D-400, which traverses Turkey along the Mediterranean coast then onward to the border with Iran.

Buses from all parts of Turkey run to Gaziantep then continue for two hours to Urfa and then on east towards Diyarbakır and Mardin.

Bus lines are Metroturizm and Kamil Koç, now part of Flixbus.

2 Otogar is the bus station, 2 km north of city centre off Haliliye Blv. The lower deck is for local buses and the upper for long-distance. Exit west to find a dolmuş or taxi to the centre.