Gevaş (;
) 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 ...
of
Van Province
Van Province (, , Armenian: Վանի մարզ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in the Eastern Anatolian region of Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. Its area is 20,921 km2, and its population is 1,128,749 (2022). ...
,
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 1,544 km
2, and its population is 26,918 (2022).
In the last
elections of March 2019, Murat Sezer from the
Justice and Development Party (AKP) was elected Mayor. As
Kaymakam
Kaymakam, also known by #Names, many other romanizations, was a title used by various officials of the Ottoman Empire, including acting grand viziers, governors of provincial sanjaks, and administrators of district kazas. The title has been reta ...
, Hamit Genç was appointed by President
Recep Tayyip Erdoĝan in July 2019.
The municipality is populated by
Kurds
Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...
.
History
Historically, Gevaş was for some time the main town of the Armenian kingdom of
Vaspurakan
Vaspurakan (, Western Armenian pronunciation: ''Vasbouragan'') was the eighth province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, which later became an independent kingdom during the Middle Ages, centered on Lake Van. Located in what is now southeaster ...
and later between the 14th and 15th centuries the centre of a small
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 ...
emirate. In their time the settlement had moved nearer to the lake.
Later the town was incorporated into 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 ...
. Before
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 ...
, the district had a Kurdish Muslim majority with a large Christian Armenian minority.
Main sights include surviving ruins of the castle, the monumental tomb known as ''Halime Hatun Kümbeti'', built in 1358, very likely for the daughter of a local emir,
a mosque built before 1446 (restoration in that year), the tomb of Sheikh Ibrahim, father of Halime Hatun
as well as the ruins of an Armenian church in Ili, probably built after 941 and an Armenian Church/monastery on
Kuş Island west of
Aghtamar Island.
Composition
There are 42
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 Gevaş District:
Mahalle
Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 19 September 2023.
* Abalı
* Akdamar
* Aladüz
* Altınsaç
* Anaköy
* Atalan
* Aydınocak
* Bağlama
* Bahçelievler
* Barışık
* Dağyöre
* Daldere
* Değirmitaş
* Dereağzı
* Dilmetaş
* Dokuzağaç
* Elmalı
* Göründü
* Gündoğan
* Güzelkonak
* Hasbey
* Hişet
* İkizler
* İnköy
* Karşıyaka
* Kayalar
* Kazanç
* Kızıltaş
* Koçak
* Kurultu
* Kuşluk
* Orta
* Pınarbaşı
* Selimiye
* Timar
* Töreli
* Uğurveren
* Uysal
* Yanıkçay
* Yemişlik
* Yoldöndü
* Yuva
References
Populated places in Van Province
Districts of Van Province
Metropolitan district municipalities in Turkey
Van vilayet
Kurdish settlements in Turkey
{{Van-geo-stub