Espiye is a town and a

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

Giresun Province Giresun Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey on the Black Sea coast. Its adjacent provinces are Trabzon to the east, Gümüşhane to the southeast, Erzincan to the south, Sivas to the southwest, and Ordu to the west. Its license-plat ...

in the

Black Sea region The Black Sea Region ( tr, Karadeniz Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The largest city in the region is Samsun. Other big cities are Trabzon, Ordu, Tokat, Giresun, Rize, Amasya and Sinop. It is bordered by the Marmara Regio ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

Etymology

"Espiye" and its earlier spelling, "Esbüyeli", are the Turkish names for the district. Espiye is thought to be formed from two parts: "Esb", a Persian word meaning "horse" and the Turkish "-yeli" and "-yelü" suffix meaning "from" or "of", or possibly the suffix "yalı", a

radix In a positional numeral system, the radix or base is the number of unique digits, including the digit zero, used to represent numbers. For example, for the decimal/denary system (the most common system in use today) the radix (base number) is ...

or generic word meaning "

shore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

" or " waterside". So, Esbüyeli means "the land of horses" or "stables" or, alternatively, "the stables on the waterside".Espiye'nin Tarihi (History of Espiye in the official site of Espiye Municipality. Translation by Prof.Dr. Zeynel Cebeci)

History

Antiquity

There is very limited information about the ancient history of Espiye, but slightly more of the larger nearby town of

Tirebolu Tirebolu (from the Greek word《Τρίπολις》meaning "three cities", named as such by its ancient Greek founders), is a town and district of Giresun Province, Turkey. Geography Tirebolu is a small town of 14,303 people located on a hill nam ...

. The area was part of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

and its successors, 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 ...

and the

Empire of Trebizond The Empire of Trebizond, or Trapezuntine Empire, was a monarchy and one of three successor rump states of the Byzantine Empire, along with the Despotate of the Morea and the Principality of Theodoro, that flourished during the 13th through ...

. Copper was mined here in the 1st century AD, and Andoz Castle was later built on the west side of the modern day town, a sister castle of Tripolis (modern day

), and Bedrama (or Bedrum) in the Harşit valley to the east of Espiye. However, the castle was too small to be the heart of a civil settlement. Measuring only 90 feet (27.43 m) by 20 feet (6.09 m), it was most likely used as a watchtower for advance warning of invading ships on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

The Turkish era

In the Ottoman

Land Registry Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded (usually with a government agency or department) to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, ...

of 1515, "Esbüyeli" has been defined as " Çepni Eli" ("

Chepni Chepni ( az, Çəpni; tr, Çepni; tk, Çepni) is one of the 24 Oghuz Turkic tribes. History In the legend of Oghuz Qaghan, the Chepni was stated as one of the clans of the tribe of ''Gök Han'' that consists of Pecheneg (''Beçenek''), Bayand ...

Province" or "Chepni's Homeland") and registered to ''Mustafa Bey I, son of Eshter Bey''. The

were a branch of the

Oghuz Turks The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, ''Oγuz'', ota, اوغوز, Oġuz) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conven ...

which between the 12th and 16th centuries settled in Kürtün in the mountains to the south of Espiye. The Chepni had a powerful cavalry of ten thousand horses, and therefore captured many districts on the

coast too, establishing the

Anatolian beylik Anatolian beyliks ( tr, Anadolu beylikleri, Ottoman Turkish: ''Tavâif-i mülûk'', ''Beylik'' ) were small principalities (or petty kingdoms) in Anatolia governed by beys, the first of which were founded at the end of the 11th century. A se ...

of Haci Emirli in Mesudiye to the west of

Giresun Giresun (), formerly Cerasus (Ancient Greek: Κερασοῦς, Greek: Κερασούντα), is the provincial capital of Giresun Province in the Black Sea Region of northeastern Turkey, about west of the city of Trabzon. Etymology Giresun ...

. In 1397, Suleyman Bey, commander of the Haci Emirli Beylik in the name of 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 ...

, attacked the Greek armies of Trebizond and conquered

. With this victory, the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

took control of the coastal zone and Suleyman Bey was named "Conqueror of Giresun" by the

, in respect to their victorious leader. However, Espiye was still within the territory of the

Sixty-four years later, in 1461, the Ottoman Emperor

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mehmed II ( ota, محمد ثانى, translit=Meḥmed-i s̱ānī; tr, II. Mehmed, ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror ( ota, ابو الفتح, Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit=the Father of Conquest, links=no; tr, Fâtih Su ...

moved against Trebizond in order to control the northeast end of his empire and quickly brought the

coast into the

. Mehmet then gave control of the lands of

, including Espiye, to the Chepnis in return for their support during the expedition. Moreover, he exempted them from paying taxes. According to the registry of 1515, Espiye was a very small village consisting of sixteen houses plus six houses in the Andoz Castle; meaning, the population of Espiye must have been 80-100, a village in the district of

. After the foundation of the

Republic 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 ...

in 1923, Espiye was still a subdistrict of

but, in 1957, it became a district in its own right.

Geography

The small plain between the rivers Yağlıdere and Gelevara, Espiye has typical characteristics of the eastern

region of

, both in its hilly topography and its wet climate. The town of Espiye is on the Black Sea coast, from

and has a population of 12,990. The

Samsun Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta ( gr, Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient Greek: Αμισός), is a city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In 2021, Samsun recorded a population of 710,000 people. The cit ...

Trabzon Trabzon (; Ancient Greek: Tραπεζοῦς (''Trapezous''), Ophitic Pontic Greek: Τραπεζούντα (''Trapezounta''); Georgian: ტრაპიზონი (''Trapizoni'')), historically known as Trebizond in English, is a city on the B ...

Black Sea coast highway runs through here. Behind the town the land sharply rises to the south up into the Giresun Mountains. The highest point is Akılbaba Tepesi. The countryside is very attractive in all shades of green; the higher mountainous area is mainly covered with dense forests of pines, firs, spruces, chestnuts, oaks, hornbeams, rhododendrons, beeches, and alders, while the coastal zone (up to 20–30 km inland) is densely planted with

hazelnut The hazelnut is the fruit of the hazel tree and therefore includes any of the nuts deriving from species of the genus '' Corylus'', especially the nuts of the species ''Corylus avellana''. They are also known as cobnuts or filberts according ...

trees and some tea. The climate is generally rainy all year round; it is cool and rainy in summer and warm and rainy in winter in the coastal zones, but snowy in the mountainous area in the south. The local cuisine includes the

pizza Pizza (, ) is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients (such as various types of sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, on ...

-style

pide The International and State Defense Police ( pt, Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado; PIDE) was a Portuguese security agency that existed during the '' Estado Novo'' regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. Formally, the main roles of th ...

and of course fish from the Black Sea.

References

External links

District Governor's official web siteEspiye photo gallery by Espiye Municipality
{{Authority control Populated places in Giresun Province Fishing communities in Turkey Populated coastal places in Turkey Districts of Giresun Province Towns in Turkey