Gaziantep Province () is a

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

and

metropolitan municipality A metropolitan municipality is a municipality established to serve a metropolitan area. Canada In generic terms and in practical application within Canada, a metropolitan municipality is an urban local government with partial or complete consol ...

in south-central

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 ...

. It is located in the westernmost part of

's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Mediterranean Region. Its area is 6,803 km², and its population is 2,154,051 (2022). Its capital is the city of

Gaziantep Gaziantep, historically Aintab and still informally called Antep, is a major city in south-central Turkey. It is the capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Medi ...

. It neighbours

Adıyaman Adıyaman () is a city in southeastern Turkey. It is the administrative centre of Adıyaman Province and Adıyaman District. Its population is 267,131 (2021). The inhabitants of the city are mostly Turkish and Kurdish. The city was one of the ...

to the northeast,

Şanlıurfa Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa (), is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. The city was known as Edessa from Hellenistic times and into Christian times. Urfa is situated on a plain about east of the Eup ...

to the east,

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

and

Kilis Kilis is a city in southernmost Turkey, near the Syria–Turkey border, border with Syria, and the administrative centre of Kilis Province and Kilis District. Its population is 112,187 (2022). On 6 February 2023 Kilis was badly affected by the tw ...

to the south,

Hatay Hatay Province (, ) is the southernmost Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is , and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, ...

to the southwest,

Osmaniye Osmaniye () is a city on the eastern edge of the Çukurova plain in southern Turkey. It is the seat of Osmaniye Province and Osmaniye District.Kahramanmaraş Kahramanmaraş (), historically Marash (; ) and Germanicea (), is a city in the Mediterranean Region, Turkey, Mediterranean region of Turkey and the administrative centre of Kahramanmaraş Province, Kahramanmaraş province. After 1973, Maraş was ...

to the northwest. An important trading center since ancient times, the province is also one of Turkey's major manufacturing zones, and its agriculture is dominated by the cultivation of

pistachio The pistachio (, ; ''Pistacia vera'') is a small to medium-sized tree of the Anacardiaceae, cashew family, originating in Iran. The tree produces nut (fruit)#Culinary definition and uses, seeds that are widely consumed as food. In 2022, world ...

nuts. In ancient times, first under the power of

Yamhad Yamhad (Yamḫad) was an ancient Semitic languages, Semitic-speaking kingdom centered on Ḥalab (Aleppo) in Syria (region), Syria. The kingdom emerged at the end of the 19th century BC and was ruled by the Yamhad dynasty, who counted on both mi ...

, then 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 ...

and later the

Assyrians Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from ot ...

controlled the region. It saw much fighting during the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

, and

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

won a key battle there in 1183. After

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and 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 ...

's disintegration, it was invaded by the forces of the

French Third Republic The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...

during 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 ...

. It was returned to Turkish control after the

Treaty of Lausanne The Treaty of Lausanne (, ) is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923 and signed in the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially resolved the conflict that had initially ...

was signed, formally ending hostilities between Turkey and the

Allies of World War I The Allies or the Entente (, ) was an international military coalition of countries led by the French Republic, the United Kingdom, the Russian Empire, the United States, the Kingdom of Italy, and the Empire of Japan against the Central Powers ...

. Originally known as Antep, the title ''gazi'' (meaning ''veteran'' in Turkish) was added to the province's and the provincial capital's name in 1921, due to its population's actions during the Turkish War of Independence.

Kilis Province Kilis Province () is a province in southern Turkey, on the border with Syria. Its area is 1,412 km2, and its population is 147,919 (2022). The province was created in 1995 from the southern part of Gaziantep Province. The city of Kilis is ho ...

was part of Gaziantep Province until it separated in 1994.

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...

are the majority in the province although there is a substantial

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

population.

Geography

Gaziantep is traversed by the northeasterly line of equal latitude and longitude. Gaziantep landscape

Geology

Two major active

geological fault Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth ...

s meet in western Gaziantep near the border with adjoining

Osmaniye Province Osmaniye Province () is a province in south-central Turkey. It was named Cebel-i Bereket () in the early republic until 1933, when it was incorporated into Adana Province. It was made a province again in 1996. Its area is 3,320 km2, and its p ...

: the

Dead Sea Transform The Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system, also sometimes referred to as the Dead Sea Rift, is a series of Fault (geology), faults that run for about 1,000 km from the Marash triple junction (a junction with the East Anatolian Fault in south ...

and the

East Anatolian Fault The East Anatolian Fault (EAF; ) is a ~700 km long major strike-slip fault zone running from eastern to south-central Turkey. It forms the transform type tectonic boundary between the Anatolian sub-plate and the northward-moving Arabian ...

. These represent the

tectonic Tectonics ( via Latin ) are the processes that result in the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. The field of ''planetary tectonics'' extends the concept to other planets and moons. These processes ...

boundary between the northward-moving Arabian Plate to the east, and the converging African and Eurasian Plates to the west. On February 6, 2023, at 04:17 TRT (01:17

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

), a 7.8

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

occurred in Gaziantep Province on the

, which caused widespread damage and loss of life. The

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

was west-northwest of the city of

. At 13:24, it was followed by a 7.7 earthquake.

Demographics

Districts

There are nine districts as listed below: The city of Gaziantep encompasses Şahinbey and Şehitkamil districts; İslahiye and Nurdağı districts form the western part of the province, while the remaining districts lie to the east of Gaziantep city.

References

External links