İncirliova is a municipality and

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 county, counties, several municipality, municip ...

Aydın Province Aydın Province () is a Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of southwestern Turkey, located in the Aegean Region. Its area is 8,116 km2, and its population is 1,148,241 (2022). T ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Its area is 188 km², and its population is 55,848 (2022). It is west of the city of

Aydın Aydın ( ''EYE-din''; ; formerly named ''Güzelhisar; Greek: Τράλλεις)'' is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River (ancient ...

Etymology

Formerly known as "Karapınar" the name was changed in 1937 to İncirliova meaning, literally, "the valley of

figs The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of tree or shrub in the flowering plant family Moraceae, native to the Mediterranean region, together with western and southern Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and i ...

", in reference to the fruit (''ficus carica'', formerly called ''

Smyrna Smyrna ( ; , or ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, Turkey. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna ...

figs'') in whose production the province of

excels.

History

See

for the rich history of this area, which has so much remaining from antiquity that it feels like an open museum. The area has changed hands many times throughout history, from the

Hittites The Hittites () were an Anatolian peoples, Anatolian Proto-Indo-Europeans, Indo-European people who formed one of the first major civilizations of the Bronze Age in West Asia. Possibly originating from beyond the Black Sea, they settled in mo ...

in the 13th century BC through the

Phrygians The Phrygians (Greek: Φρύγες, ''Phruges'' or ''Phryges'') were an ancient Indo-European speaking people who inhabited central-western Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) in antiquity. Ancient Greek authors used "Phrygian" as an umbrella term t ...

Lydians The Lydians (Greek language, Greek: Λυδοί; known as ''Sparda'' to the Achaemenids, Old Persian cuneiform Wikt:𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭, 𐎿𐎱𐎼𐎭) were an Anatolians, Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spo ...

Ionians The Ionians (; , ''Íōnes'', singular , ''Íōn'') were one of the traditional four major tribes of Ancient Greece, alongside the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major linguistic divisions of the ...

Persians Persians ( ), or the Persian people (), are an Iranian ethnic group from West Asia that came from an earlier group called the Proto-Iranians, which likely split from the Indo-Iranians in 1800 BCE from either Afghanistan or Central Asia. They ...

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

and

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion () was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' continued to be used as a n ...

. The Turkish settlement here was founded in the 15th century by the Madanoğlu family and as it was well watered was called "Karapınar" (dark spring). The Karapınar area really developed with the building of the İzmir-Aydın railway, founded by a British company to ensure a new source of cotton during the world shortage caused by the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Following the railway came other industries including the spinning of cotton and the extraction of olive oil and the surrounding wetlands were drained to create more land for planting. At the same time water was channeled to bathhouses and mills in the ever-growing town. Following the

Treaty of Sèvres The Treaty of Sèvres () was a 1920 treaty signed between some of the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire, but not ratified. The treaty would have required the cession of large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, ...

, after the defeat of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

in the First World War Karapınar was occupied by

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

forces from May 26, 1919. The Turkish resistance began at nearby Erbeyli in June 1919 and continued in the area throughout the

Turkish War of Independence , strength1 = May 1919: 35,000November 1920: 86,000Turkish General Staff, ''Türk İstiklal Harbinde Batı Cephesi'', Edition II, Part 2, Ankara 1999, p. 225August 1922: 271,000Celâl Erikan, Rıdvan Akın: ''Kurtuluş Savaşı tarih ...

, while the Turkish people of the town retreated into the surrounding hills for safety to gather forces for further resistance. Following the defeat of the Greek army at İnönü and their retreat to the Aegean coast, Karapınar was liberated on September 7, 1922. During the 1920s Karapınar was rebuilt with the founding of sports clubs, a fig-growers union, and a fruit market. The town's first bank, İtibar Bankası was founded in 1927 and electricity came to Karapınar in 1930. The town was renamed İncirliova in the 1930s following an observation by Atatürk of how many fig trees there were in the area.

Geography

İncirliova itself is today a small town of 18,000 people, on the

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

–

highway and a station on the İzmir-Aydın railway. This area of the

Büyük Menderes Büyük means "big" in Turkic languages and may refer to: People Given name * Büyük Jeddikar (1929–2013), Iranian retired footballer * Büyük Vatankhah (born 1943), Iranian retired footballer Surname * Adem Büyük (born 1987), Turkish ...

valley is very fertile and İncirliova is an agricultural district.

Composition

There are 28

neighbourhoods A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...

in İncirliova District:Mahalle
Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 12 July 2023. * Acarlar * Akçeşme * Arpadere * Arzular * Atatürk * Beyköy * Cumhuriyet * Dereağzı * Eğrek * Erbeyli * Gerenkova * Hacıaliobası * Hamitler * Hürriyet *

İkizdere İkizdere (Laz: Xuras) is a town in Rize Province in the Black Sea Region, Turkey, Black Sea region of Turkey. It is the seat of İkizdere District.

* İsafakılar * İstiklal * Karabağ * Karagözler * Köprüova * Kurtuluş * Osmanbükü * Palamut *

Sandıklı Sandıklı is a town of Afyonkarahisar Province in the Aegean region of Turkey. It is the seat of Sandıklı District.Sınırteke * Şirindere * Yazıdere * Zafer

Places of interest

* The Atatürk memorial to the memory of the

in the town was built in 1985 by Professor Tankut Öktem of

Marmara University Marmara University (Turkish language, Turkish: ''Marmara Üniversitesi'') is a Public university, public research university in Istanbul, Turkey. The university, named after the Sea of Marmara, was founded as a university in 1982. However, its ...

, it was the first sizeable monument to be designed solely by a Turkish architect.

References

External links

the municipality

Video: Dancing on the Old Bridge at İncirliova
performed by the Sarıkaya family, recorded 2016 by Thede Kahl and Andreea Pascaru, retrieved fro
Austrian Academy of Sciences
{{DEFAULTSORT:Incirliova Populated places in Aydın Province Districts of Aydın Province Metropolitan district municipalities in Turkey