Alpullu is a town in
Kırklareli Province
Kırklareli Province ( tr, ) is a Provinces of Turkey, province in northwestern Turkey on the west coast of the Black Sea. The province neighbours Bulgaria to the north along a long border. It borders the province of Edirne to the west and the ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
Geography
Alpullu is a
belde (town) in
Babaeski
Babaeski is a town and district of Kırklareli Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. The countyship has a population of 29,342 and the total area of the district is 652 km2.
Name
The name Babaeski is believed to have originated accordin ...
district of Kırklareli Province. At the distance to Babaeski is and the distance to
Kırklareli is . Alpullu is at the junction of the main railroad connecting
İstanbul to
Edirne and the tail line to Kırklareli. The population of the town is 2321 as of 2018.
History
The ancient name of the town was probably Alpiya meaning "Shining Water country". But during the Turkish era the name was Şekerköy meaning "Sugar village" referring to the importance of sugar beet to the town's economy. There is an ancient tumulus near the town and an
Ottoman bridge named Sinanlı Mehmet köprüsü around the town. The Greek population called the town Alepli ( el, Αλεπλή).
During the
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...
the retreating Turkish army burnt 250 houses of the Greek population and murdered 109 Greek inhabitants of both sexes and of all ages. Also, the Turks burned the food of the inhabitants and stole fifty pairs of oxen, with carts and 2,000 sheep. Under Bulgarian rule the villagers reconstructed their buildings. When Turks recaptured the town new persecutions broke out, some Greeks murdered by the Turks and the inhabitants were expelled and fled to Greece.
But during the
Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878)
The Russo-Turkish wars (or Ottoman–Russian wars) were a series of twelve wars fought between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 20th centuries. It was one of the longest series of military conflicts in European histor ...
Muslim people from
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
, the
Pomaks who escaped from the Russian armies were settled in the farm to form the core of the town.
Alpullu was declared a seat of township in 1964.
Economy
Alpullu's economy depends on sugar beet, and the first sugar refinery of Turkey was founded in Alpullu in 1925 as one of the earliest industrial projects of the newly founded Turkish Republic. Now Alpullu is one of the most flourishing towns of Turkey. In 2007 a natural gas source was found in Alpullu
References
{{Authority control
Populated places in Kırklareli Province
Towns in Turkey
Babaeski District