Batman ( ku, Êlih) is a

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

-majority city in the

Southeastern Anatolia Region The Southeastern Anatolia Region ( tr, Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous city in the region is Gaziantep. Other examples of big cities are Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Mardin and Adıyaman. It is ...

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 ...

and the capital of

Batman Province Batman Province ( tr, , ku, Parêzgeha Êlihê) is a province in the Southeast Anatolia Region of Turkey. It was created in May 1990 with the Law No. 3647 taking some parts from the eastern Province of Siirt and some from the southern Province ...

. It lies on a plateau, above sea level, near the confluence of the Batman River and the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

. The

Batı Raman oil field The Batı Raman oil field (''batı'' meaning ''west'' in Turkish) is located in Batman Province, in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. With estimated reserves of 1.85 billion barrels (252×106 tonnes) and a production rate of around from ...

, which is the largest oil field in Turkey, is located just outside the city. Batman has a local airport and a military airbase, which was used for transit of aircraft and helicopters in some search and rescue operations during the

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

. Until the 1950s, Batman was a village, with a population of about 3,000. However, oil fields were discovered around it in the 1940s that resulted in a rapid development of the area and in the inflow of workforce from other parts of Turkey. In 1957, the village was renamed Batman, after the river namesake, received a city status and became a district center. Over the next 50 years, a significant amount of Batman's one-story buildings were rebuilt as multi-story buildings. As a result, its population grew to many times its previous size. A km long oil pipeline was built in 1967 from Batman to the port city of

Dörtyol Dörtyol () is a city in Hatay Province, Turkey. It is a port city and oil terminus located 26 km north of the city of Iskenderun, near the easternmost point of the Mediterranean at the head of the Gulf of İskenderun. Geography The name Dörtyo ...

near the easternmost point of the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

coast in order to transport the crude oil from the Batman refinery. In 1990, the city became the capital of Batman Province. Apart from oil, which is by far the dominant commodity of the region, Batman produces beverages, processed food, chemicals, furniture, footwear, machinery and transport equipment. A university was established in 2007, Batman University, and is part of the Erasmus foreign student exchange program.

History

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Early history

The Batman Province contains the strategic Tigris River with fertile lands by its sides, as well as rocky hills with numerous caves providing a natural shelter. As a result, it was inhabited from prehistoric times, likely from the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

(

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...

) period, according to archeological evidence. First documented evidence of settlements in the province dates back to the 7th century BC. An artificial "island" was created in this marshy area, which was named ''elekhan'' and stood independent for 194 years from 546 BC until the invasion of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

in 352 BC. The Batman Province was a religious center in the 4th–6th centuries AD and was part of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

for seven centuries. In the 11th–12th centuries became under the control of the

Great Seljuq Empire The Great Seljuk Empire, or the Seljuk Empire was a high medieval, culturally Turco-Persian tradition, Turko-Persian, Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, founded and ruled by the Qiniq (tribe), Qïnïq branch of Oghuz Turks. It spanned a total are ...

and

Artuqids The Artuqid dynasty (alternatively Artukid, Ortoqid, or Ortokid; , pl. ; ; ) was a Turkoman dynasty originated from tribe that ruled in eastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. The Artuqi ...

and became a prominent outpost of the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

. This area was populated by

Syriac Christians Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...

and had a significant presence of

Pontic Greeks The Pontic Greeks ( pnt, Ρωμαίοι, Ρωμίοι, tr, Pontus Rumları or , el, Πόντιοι, or , , ka, პონტოელი ბერძნები, ), also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group in ...

, Assyrians,

Baghdadi Jews The former communities of Jewish migrants and their descendants from Baghdad and elsewhere in the Middle East are traditionally called Baghdadi Jews or Iraqi Jews. They settled primarily in the ports and along the trade routes around the Indian ...

and

Armenians Armenians ( hy, հայեր, ''hayer'' ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the ''de facto'' independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora ...

; these peoples lived in the region from 500 BC to the late 19th century. Significant changes in its management and language were brought in 1515 by Mahmoud Pasha Elekhani. It is believed that a variant of his name, ''Elah'', was transformed into ''Iluh'' and gave the old name to the Batman city.Batman
gap.gov.tr
kultur.gov.tr, 21 February 2007 (in Turkish)

Modern history

The locality was made the capital of a district in the

Siirt Province Siirt Province, ( tr, , ku, Parêzgeha Sêrtê) is a province of Turkey, located in the southeast. The province borders Bitlis to the north, Batman to the west, Mardin to the southwest, Şırnak to the south, and Van to the east. It has an ar ...

in 1957 and as the Batman province was founded in May 1990, also its capital. The city was connected with

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

in 1944 by a railway line. This was the major transportation route until the 1950s when highways gradually became more important. Until the 1950s, Batman was a village of some 3,000 people; it was called Iluh and belonged to the

. It was first located in the Elmedin district of Siirt. The entire district disappeared in the early 1926 due to the flood of the Batman River. After that, Iluh became part of Beşiri sub-province. On 2 September 1957, the village became a district center and renamed Batman after the river flowing nearby, which was known under its modern name since at least the 19th century. On 16 May 1990 it was designated the capital of the Batman Province. This administrative evolution reflected the rapid growth of the city owing to its oil extraction and refinement industries. Oil was found in the region in the 1930s and the oldest in Turkey refinery was built in 1955 to process crude oil of the Raman and Garzan areas. The refinery is operated by

Tüpraş Türkiye Petrol Rafinerileri A.Ş. is a company in Turkey, operating four refineries with a total capacity to handle an annual 30 mn tons of crude. Introduction Tüpraş operates four oil refineries, three of which process imported crude. The 11 ...

, it has a processing capacity of 1.1 million tonnes per year and storage capacity of 253 billion m³.Batman. Genel Bilgiler
kultur.gov.tr, 18 June 2008 (in Turkish) Development of the oil fields outside the city resulted in a rapid growth of Batman beginning in the 1950s. As a result, the city was declared a "Priority Region for Development". A high school was established in the city in 1975 and most one-story houses were rebuilt into multi-story buildings. However, the large inflow of labor for the oil industry resulted in construction of hundreds of unauthorized small buildings on the outskirts of the city. Because of the wind direction, most industrial complexes were located in the southern and south-eastern areas. Balaban, 155

Kurdish–Turkish conflict

The oil-related development of Batman also resulted in relocation of Turkish people into a mostly Kurd-populated Batman Province. This has brought

ethnic conflicts An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positi ...

that escalated in the 1990s. More than 180 civilians were killed in the Batman city area by unidentified gunmen between 1992 and 1993. In June 2000, the then-Mayor Abdullah Akın attempted to rename up to 200 streets, and give them names of events of the Kurdish history or of people who supported the Kurdish culture. A Turkish court did not allow some names, but other names passed. In 2010 the city was the location for the first Kurdish film festival in Turkey. In the opening ceremony a letter of the imprisoned mayor Nejdet Atalay was read out in the Kurdish language highlighting the struggles the Kurds have to go through in Turkey that does not recognize the Kurdish language.

Politics

In the local elections in December 1977, a candidate who openly supported Kurdish rights, Edip Sönmez, won the elections. He was murdered in 1979. The Kurdish Mayors Abdullah Akın (1999–2002), Hüseyin Kalkan (2002–2009) and

Nejdet Atalay Nejdet Atalay (born 1978) is a former politician of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) and Mayor of Batman. He has been a supporter of Kurdish cultural and language rights and made the first legal defense in the Kurdish language in a Turkish court ...

have all faced prosecutions and were in prison. The former mayor of Batman Nejdet Atalay, was a member of the

Democratic Society Party The Democratic Society Party ( tr, Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP, Kurdish: ''Partiya Civaka Demokratîk'', PCD) was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the So ...

(DTP) until the

Constitutional Court of Turkey The Constitutional Court of Turkey ( tr, , sometimes abbreviated as ''AYM'') is the highest legal body for constitutional review in Turkey. It "examines the constitutionality, in respect of both form and substance, of laws, decrees having the for ...

banned that party on 11 December 2009 for alleged ties to the

Kurdistan Workers' Party The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...

. This decision banned him and 35 other members of the now-disbanded political party from joining any political party for five years. In 2014 Sabri Özdemir won the elections. But he was suspended as mayor in October 2015 for "Self governance" remarks and later dismissed. In the local elections of March 2019, Mehmet Demir was elected Mayor of Batman, but on 23 February 2020, he was dismissed and a trustee was appointed. Kaymakam is Osman Bilici.

Demographics

According to the national census data collected between 1990 and 2000, the population of Batman is growing at a rate of 5% per year. By 2008, it reached a population of 298,342, with a male to female ratio of 1.015. According to the 2000 census, about 50% of population is married and has about 5 children per family. About 5 people are living together in one house as family. Balaban, 156 The unemployment rate is about 20% for males and 10% for females. Kurdish is the main first-language in the city.

Industry

Batman's primary commodity is oil, as there are multiple oil fields in the nearby area. These oil fields have spurred the creation of multiple pipelines to transmit oil to and from several important cities. Apart from oil, which is by far the dominant commodity of the region, Batman produces beverages, processed food, chemicals, furniture, footwear, machinery and transport equipment.Batman
Encyclopædia Britannica

Oil fields

Search for oil in the Batman Province started in 1935. On 20 April 1940, oil was found at a depth of at the

Raman oil field The Raman oil field is an oil field located in Batman, Batman Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey. It was discovered in 1940 and later developed by Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı. It began production in 1948 and produces oil ...

, located south-east of Batman. The first experimental well began producing 10 tonnes (about ) of oil per day on 6 June 1940. The field was set to be expanded for commercial production by 1945, but the production was delayed to 1947 due to the lack of storage. To solve this, a small refinery was built at the site with a capacity of 9 tonnes/day in 1947, and in November 1948 a bigger refinery capable of processing up to 200 tonnes/day was completed in Batman. An even bigger refinery (330 tonnes/d) was completed in Batman in 1955. Several other oil fields were discovered later around Batman, the largest being

, which produces about of oil daily.

Pipelines

A km long oil pipeline was built in 1967 from Batman to

, a port city located near the easternmost point of the

coast, to transport the crude oil from the Batman region. The pipeline has an annual capacity of 3.5 million tonnes and was transporting about (about 2.7 million tonnes) in the 1990s and about twice less between 2003 and 2007. Another, short pipeline long connected Batman with Şelmo, which is the location of the second largest oil field in Turkey. It transferred between 1.5 and of oil per year between the years of 1990 and 2007. Both pipelines are operated by

BOTAŞ BOTAŞ Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS) is the state-owned crude oil and natural gas pipelines and trading company in Turkey. The company was established in 1974 as a subsidiary of TPAO. Since 1995, BOTAS is a wholly state-owned company. ...

Education and sports

Education

According to the census of 2000, 15% males and 43% females of Batman were categorized as illiterate. Within the literate part, about 33% males and 29% females have not finished secondary school, 3.3% males and 0.9% females had university education, and about 13% males and 3.8% females had completed a high-school or an equivalent program. There are 71 elementary and 12 high schools in Batman.

Batman University

The city also has a university, Batman University, which was founded on 27 May 2007. It employs about 140 staff members and has the faculties of Science and Letters, Technical Education, and Engineering, which mostly cover topics about engineering, business, and administration. About 2,500 students, who come from different parts of Turkey, study at the university. The university is part of the Erasmus foreign student exchange program.

Sports

Association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

is the most popular sport in Batman. The city has a professional football club,

Batman Petrolspor Batman Petrolspor is a professional Turkish football club located in the city of Batman. Formed in 1960, the club colours are red, white, and black and they play their home matches at Batman Arena. The club is named Petrolspor because Batman is ...

, which was formed in 1960 and plays in the third division

TFF Third League TFF 3. Lig (Turkish Football Federation Third League) is the fourth level in the Turkish football league system. It was founded in 2001–02 season as a continuation of then third level division Turkish Third Football League.Turkish Third Footba ...

. The club was named after the petroleum industry of the city. Another local football team,

72 Batmanspor 72 Batmanspor, formerly Batman Belediyespor, is a Turkish sports club based in Batman. The football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football ...

, participates in the Amateur League. There is a football stadium in Batman, which has a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 4,900 spectators.BATMAN PETROLSPOR
tff.org . Retrieved 25 June 2010. Another popular sport is

wrestling Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...

. Freestyle wrestlers from Batman have won national competitions, and Ali Riza Alan won gold in 1970 and silver in 1974 in world championships in the weight category under .Tarihçe
batmanpetrolsk.org . Retrieved 25 June 2010. The major sport venue of Batman, Atatürk Sports Hall, can accommodate 1,000 spectators and supports many athletics, such as

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

, wrestling, folk dance,

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

martial arts Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...

(such as

kurash 'HISTORY OF KURASH'' Kurash is an ancient type of upright jacket grappling which originated in the territory of modern Uzbekistan. According to the latest scientific research the age of Kurash is at least three and a half thousand years. Kurash is ...

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a modern Japanese martial art that is split into many different styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practiced in around 1 ...

, wushu,

karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

and

taekwondo ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast kicking techniques. T ...

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

and

swimming Swimming is the self-propulsion of a person through water, or other liquid, usually for recreation, sport, exercise, or survival. Locomotion is achieved through coordinated movement of the limbs and the body to achieve hydrodynamic thrust that r ...

Transportation

Batman is connected by highways and railway with the nearby cities of

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır (; ; ; ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, ...

and Kurtalan and with the capital Ankara. The distance (using highways) to Istanbul is , to Ankara , and to İzmir . There is also a regional

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

outside of Batman at , which provides direct flights to İzmir, Ankara and Istanbul. The airport is combined with the military Batman Air Base. The base was renovated after the US-Turkey agreement in 1982 to make the base available for US tactical aircraft acting within

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

forces. This allowed them to patrol the region of Caucasus, Turkey and Iran without refueling. The base was then used for aid delivery and rescue missions in Iraq during the 1991

Geography

Batman is built on a flat plateau elevated at above the sea level, though there is a declining slope of up to 0.6° in the northeastern and southern areas. There are almost no forests in and around the city. The Iluh River, a tributary of the Batman River, flows through the city. The soil mostly consists of soft and porous clay; it is unstable and is easily eroded with rain and floods of the Batman and Iluh rivers. The floods usually occur between March and May, although they sometimes occur between October and November. Major floods occurred in 1969 (April, 60 buildings damaged), 1972 (April and May, 210 buildings damaged), 1991 (November, 500 buildings flooded), 1995 (March, nearly 1000 buildings submerged and 450 damaged) and 2006 (October, 11 people died and 20 injured). Balaban, 147–149

Climate

Batman has a hot summer

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

: ''Csa'', Trewartha: ''Cs''). Summers in the city are, on average, one of the hottest in the nation, averaging in July. Rainfall is almost non-existent during the summer months, with many summer months passing by without measurable precipitation. Winters are cool and wet with frosty nights. Snowfall is sporadic between the months of December and March, snowing for a week or two, with a record snow depth of .

Notable people

* Ali Rıza Alan – world champion (1970) in freestyle wrestling. * İbrahim Bilgen – Turkish politician * Hüseyin Kalkan * Nalin Pekgul – Swedish politician *

Mehmet Şimşek Mehmet Şimşek (born 1 January 1967) is a Turkish politician and economist who served as a Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey from 24 November 2015 until the office's abolition on 9 July 2018. He previously served as the Minister of Finance from 2 ...

– Minister of Finance of TurkeyH.E. Mehmet Şimşek, Black Sea Energy & Economic Forum
Bseef.org (22 July 2007). Retrieved 12 February 2011. *

Karapetê Xaço Karapetê Xaço or Karabêtê Xaço or Gerabêtê Xaço ( hy, Կարապետ Խաչո) (September 3, 1900 Salihe Kevirbiri, ''Bir Çığlığın Yüzyılı: Karapetê Xaço'', Si Yayınları, İstanbul, 2002, p. 66. or 1903 or 1908 - January 15, 200 ...

–

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

singer of traditional Kurdish ''

dengbêj Dengbêj is a Kurdish music genre and/or a singer of the music genre Dengbêj. Dengbêjs are singing storytellers. There have been many terms to describe Dengbêjs throughout history, but today Dengbêj is the best known, and also several singing ...

'' music.

References

Bibliography

External links

GAP Project page re Batman

Batman Province GuideBatman University Website
{{Authority control Cities in Turkey Populated places in Batman Province Populated places on the Tigris River Districts of Batman Province Turkish Kurdistan Kurdish settlements in Turkey Batman District