Sarayköy is a town and district of

Denizli Province Denizli Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey in Western Anatolia, on high ground above the Aegean coast. Neighbouring provinces are Uşak to the north, Burdur, Isparta, Afyon to the east, Aydın, Manisa to the west and Muğla to the south. ...

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 ...

, 20 km west of the city of

Denizli Denizli is an industrial city in the southwestern part of Turkey and the eastern end of the alluvial valley formed by the river Büyük Menderes, where the plain reaches an elevation of about . Denizli is located in the country's Aegean Region. ...

, on a plain between mountains and watered by Büyük Menderes River. The area is around 470 km², and the population (2010) is 29,854 of which 18,510 live in the town of Sarayköy, and the rest in surrounding villages. Road sign of Sarayköy, Denizli

Sarayköy is at a high altitude inland from 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 ...

and thus has hot dry summers and very cold winters. The mountain sides are mostly bare but there are ongoing forestry projects.

History

The town was previously a village named ''Sarıbey'' after the

Turkmen Turkmen, Türkmen, Turkoman, or Turkman may refer to: Peoples Historical ethnonym * Turkoman (ethnonym), ethnonym used for the Oghuz Turks during the Middle Ages Ethnic groups * Turkmen in Anatolia and the Levant (Seljuk and Ottoman-Turkish desc ...

lord that settled his tribe here in the 14th century. Sarayköy was an important point of resistance to the Greek army in the

Turkish War of Independence The Turkish War of Independence "War of Liberation", also known figuratively as ''İstiklâl Harbi'' "Independence War" or ''Millî Mücadele'' "National Struggle" (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns waged by th ...

. Volunteers assembled here were able to defend the bridge across the River Menderes and thus prevent the Greeks from occupying the city of Denizli. There is a statue in the town of a fighter in local

efe Agencia EFE, S.A. () is a Spanish international news agency, the major multimedia news agency in Spanish language and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was created in 1939 ...

costume to commemorate this struggle.

Sarayköy today

The major activity of the area is textile production (following in the footsteps of nearby Babadağ), mainly weaving but some printing and sewing of bedding and other home textiles. 5,000 homes in the town are heated with water run off from the geothermal power station in the village of Kızıldere, which was the first plant of its kind in Turkey. There are also plants near the power station making dry ice and bottling carbon dioxide. The plain is irrigated and mostly used for growing cotton and there is a large cotton storage and processing plant in the town. Other crops include figs, olives and apricots. Other activities include limestone quarrying and coal mining. Sarayköy is also a market town for the surrounding countryside.

Places of interest

* The Ahmetli Bridge over the Büyük Menderes river, 15 km from Sarayköy township, dates back to the Roman era. The middle section of the bridge was blown up as a defensive measure during the Greco-Turkish War but was reconstructed with reinforced concrete later on.

Notable natives

* Sezen Aksu, Turkey's leading modern singer and songwriter was born in Sarayköy.

References

External links

Thermal Resort & Spa
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saraykoy Populated places in Denizli Province