Sultanhisar is a town and a small district of Aydın Province in the Aegean region of

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 ...

, 30 km east of the city of Aydın on the road to Denizli.

History

The first settlement here was the ancient city of Nysa in Asia (on the Maeander), founded in the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

period and continuing to thrive under the

Ancient Romans In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

, also as bishopric, where the geographer

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...

was educated. Nysa is 3 km from the modern town of Sultanhisar, which was founded by the

Seljuk Turks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turk ...

in 1270 and brought into the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

in 1425.

Geography and economy

Sultanhisar is an agricultural district in the Büyük Menderes valley. The main products of the area are typical of the Aegean region: olives, figs, citrus fruits, grapes, strawberries etc. and the local industry is the processing of these products: olive oil pressing, spinning cotton, preparing and packing fruit, especially figs. Sultanhisar itself is a small town of 6,000 people on the

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban agglo ...

Afyon Afyonkarahisar (, tr, afyon "poppy, opium", ''kara'' "black", ''hisar'' "fortress") is a city in western Turkey, the capital of Afyon Province. Afyon is in the mountainous countryside inland from the Aegean coast, south-west of Ankara along t ...

railway line. The local cuisine features typical Aegean dishes such as the bread-pancakes called

gözleme Gözleme is a savory Turkish stuffed turnover. The dough is usually unleavened, and made only with flour, salt and water, but gözleme can be made from yeast dough as well. It is similar to bazlama, but is lightly brushed with butter or oil, w ...

. The town has a horticultural school of

Adnan Menderes University Adnan ( ar, عدنان, 'adnān) is the traditional ancestor of the Adnanite Arabs of Northern, Western, Eastern and Central Arabia, as opposed to the Qahtanite Arabs of Southern Arabia who descend from Qahtan. His ancestry can be traced back t ...

Towns in the district

Atça Atça is a town in the district of Sultanhisar in Turkey's Aydın Province. The plan of the town comes from Paris's Place de l'Étoile. History After the Greek invasion, the town was destroyed by fire and was rebuilt as a circular town. Town ...

- Well-planned and tidy, with 7,600 people a larger town than Sultanhisar itself. One of Turkey's largest strawberry growing districts. There is an annual strawberry harvest festival. * Salavatlı -

Places of interest

Nysa on the Maeander Nysa on the Maeander ( el, Νύσα or Νύσσα) was an ancient city and bishopric of Asia Minor, whose remains are in the Sultanhisar district of Aydın Province of Turkey, east of the Ionian city of Ephesus, and which remains a Latin Catho ...

- ruins of the ancient

Caria Caria (; from Greek: Καρία, ''Karia''; tr, Karya) was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia (Mycale) south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionians, Ionian and Dorians, Dorian Greeks colonized the west of i ...

n city, including a large theatre, bridges (

Nysa Bridge The Nysa Bridge is a late imperial Roman bridge over the Cakircak stream in Nysa (modern Sultanhisar) in the ancient region of Caria, modern-day Turkey. The long substructure was the second largest of its kind in antiquity, after the Pergamo ...

), baths and a gymnasium. The site is still being excavated, led by Professor Vedat Idil of Ankara University.

References

Sources and external links

*
local information

archaeology in Nysa

Sultanhisar information
Populated places in Aydın Province Districts of Aydın Province Sultanhisar District {{Aydın-geo-stub