Tatvan ( ) is a city on the western shore of
Lake Van
Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...
. It is the chief city of Tatvan District within
Bitlis Province in eastern
Turkey, and has about 96,000 inhabitants. The current Mayor is Mehmet Emin Geylani (
AKP).
The district is fully
Kurdish.
History
The citadel at Eski Tatvan possibly dates back to the
Urartian
Urartian or Vannic is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language which was spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom of Urartu (''Biaini'' or ''Biainili'' in Urartian), which was centered on the region around Lake Van and had its capital, Tushpa, ...
period; it was used until at least the 17th century.
, the
Hamdanid emir of
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
, motto =
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...
, visited Tatvan in 939/40;
while he was here, he received the submission of the Armenian prince
Ashot III of Taron Ashot III ( el, Ἀσώτιος, ''Asotios''; Arabic: ''Ashūṭ ibn Ghirghūr'' and ''Ibn Ṭurnīq''; ) was the last independent ruler of the southern Armenian region of Taron from until his death in 967.
Ashot was a natural son of Grigor I of ...
. The town was historically a stage on the route from
Van
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...
to
Bitlis.
By the 20th century, though, Tatvan had dwindled to a mere village, little more than "a cluster of houses by a jetty".
It only developed back into a town until transport links improved around mid-century, with the construction of the railway in the 1950s and the improvement of the road to Van in 1964.
In the 1980s, T.A. Sinclair wrote that the Denizcilik Bankası (Shipping Company) ran a good hotel on the south side of town, which was often full; the other hotels at the time, he wrote, were in the town center and were not good.
Transport
The
Tatvan Pier railway station
Tatvan Pier railway station ( tr, Tatvan İskele istasyonu) is a railway station and pier in Tatvan, Turkey. Situated on the western shore of Lake Van, the station serves as a connection between modes of transport, with two slips carrying a total o ...
, which is the eastern terminus of the railway line between Ankara and
Teheran, with freight and passenger trains.
It is connected eastwards to
Van
A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...
, 100 km away, and westwards to the rest of Turkey, by
State Road D300. There is also a
train ferry across the
lake Van
Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...
.
The ferry was upgraded in 2015.
There is no railway around the lake to Van; it is intended eventually to build one but to date there are no plans. This would actually create an unbroken rail link between Europe and the Indian subcontinent, as Van is effectively the western terminus of the Iranian railway network.
There is a bus station about 500 meters from the train station.
Climate
See also
*
Turkish State Railways
*
Islamic Republic of Iran Railways
, majoroperators =RAI, Tooka rail, Samand rail
, ridership =21 million
, passkm =13 billion
, freight =31 million tonnes
, tonkm =22 billion tonnes
, infrastructure =
, length =
, doublelength = 142 ...
References
External links
Mayor's web siteTatvan in brief
Populated places in Bitlis Province
Kurdish settlements in Turkey
{{Bitlis-geo-stub