Suluova (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

: Αργουμα, Argouma and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

: Arguma) is a town and district of

Amasya Province Amasya Province ( tr, ) is a province of Turkey, situated on the Yeşil River in the Black Sea Region to the north of the country. The provincial capital is Amasya, the antique ''Amaseia'' mentioned in documents from the era of Alexander the Gre ...

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 ...

, located on high ground inland within the central

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 ...

region. It covers an area of 516km², and the population (2010) is 47,510 of which 37,669 live in the town of Suluova, the remainder spread throughout the surrounding countryside. Altitude is 510 m. The mayor is Fatih Üçok ( AKP).

Name

Suluova was known in antiquity as ''Arguma'', meaning 'watery' and this was later translated into Turkish first as ''Suluca'' and later as ''Suluova'', meaning ''watery plain''. Two-thirds of the district lies on the plain (watered by the Tersakan River), one-third in the surrounding mountain forest. The land is dry and strong winds whip over the mountains from the

so Suluova is notorious for its dust storms.

Özhan Öztürk Özhan Öztürk (born 1968) is a Turkish writer and researcher. He wrote a Turkish Folklore Encyclopaedia and an encyclopaedic dictionary of the culture and folklore of the peoples of the Black Sea region of Turkey. Works * ''Karadeniz Ans ...

claims that Argoma means "border settlement/base" at Hittite-Kaskians border erha “border” + huma(ti) “base/settlement” while Bergama means "high settlement/base" in

Hittite language Hittite (natively / "the language of Neša", or ''nešumnili'' / "the language of the people of Neša"), also known as Nesite (''Nešite'' / Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a peopl ...

br>Pontus: Antik Çağ’dan Günümüze Karadeniz’in Etnik ve Siyasi Tarihi
Genesis Yayınları. Ankara, 2011 pp. 438-39

Climate

Suluova has a

warm-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

( Köppen: ''Csb'').

History

Excavations of the hill of ''Kümbettepe'' show the history of Suluova goes back to 2000 BC, the stone age. The area was then settled by the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-cent ...

. 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 ...

arrived in the 11th century AD and the area was brought within 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 1386.

Suluova today

Suluova has grown into a large town for four reasons: the area is a rich source of lignite coal, this is good farmland and in particular Turkey's largest growers of onions are located here, there is a sugar factory located there, and a railway line passes through the town.

Administrative structure

Towns

* Suluova * Eraslan

Villages

References

External links

District municipality's official website
Populated places in Amasya Province Districts of Amasya Province Towns in Turkey Suluova District {{Amasya-geo-stub