Soma is a town and district of

Manisa Province Manisa Province ( tr, ) is a province in western Turkey. Its neighboring provinces are İzmir to the west, Aydın to the south, Denizli to the southeast, Uşak to the east, Kütahya to the northeast, and Balıkesir to the north. The city of Ma ...

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 ...

. According to the 2009 census, the population of the district is 101,011, of which 74,158 live in the town of Soma. The district covers an area of , and the town lies at an elevation of .

Economy

Lignite Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...

mining and a lignite-fired thermal power plant are the main economic activities in Soma. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the mines were opened up for production. The lignite extracted during that time was described as being of "very bad" quality. That lignite was burned with German

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

for trains in the region. A small portion was exported to

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 ...

. A

just transition Just transition is a framework developed by the trade union movement to encompass a range of social interventions needed to secure workers' rights and livelihoods when economies are shifting to sustainable production, primarily combating climat ...

from coal could be supported by the

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is an international financial institution founded in 1991. As a multilateral developmental investment bank, the EBRD uses investment as a tool to build market economies. Initially focus ...

. The

Soma Wind Farm Soma Wind Farm is an onshore wind power plant in Soma in Manisa Province in the northwestern Aegean Region of Turkey. Built in two phases and consisting of 119 wind turbines with an installed output power of 140 MW in total, it is one of Turkey ...

, with 119

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...

s and an installed total capacity of 140.4 MW, is one of Turkey's largest wind farms. Olive, walnut and almond cultivation is among the important agricultural activities of Soma.

2014 Soma coal mine disaster

On 13 May 2014, as a result of an explosion caused by a mine fire at the

Soma coal mine Eynez Coal Mine, also known as Soma Coal Mine, is a disused coal mine in Turkey near the town of Soma in Manisa Province. The mine, a public property owned by TKI, was operated by the private sector company Soma Kömür İşletmeleri A.Ş. In M ...

, 301 workers were killed.

Notes

External links

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Road map of Soma and environs
Populated places in Manisa Province {{Manisa-geo-stub