Söğüt (, ) is a town in

Bilecik Province Bilecik Province () is a province in midwest Turkey, neighboring Bursa to the west, Kocaeli and Sakarya to the north, Bolu to the east, Eskişehir to the southeast and Kütahya to the south. Its area is 4,179 km2, and its population is ...

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 the seat of

Söğüt District Söğüt District is a district of Bilecik Province of Turkey. Its seat is the town Söğüt. ...

.İlçe Belediyesi
Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 30 January 2023. Its population is 13,566 (2021). The mayor is İsmet Sever ( MHP), elected in 2019. Söğüt is notable as the founding location and first

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

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 ...

from 1281 to 1335.

Name and etymology

The name of the settlement is first attested under the

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 ...

name ''Thēbásion'' () in 13th century. According to Ottoman

cadastral A cadastre or cadaster ( ) is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes and bounds, metes-and-bounds of a country.Jo Henssen, ''Basic Principles of the Main Cadastral Systems in the World,'/ref> Often it is represente ...

record books of 1487 in Hüdavendigâr area the town was registered under the Turkish name ''Beğsöğüdü'' or ''Bey Söğüdü'', and this name took the form ''Söğüd'' in government records after the first half of the 17th century. A Greek rendering of the Turkish name, ''Sogoúti'' (), is attested in late Byzantine sources.

Laonikos Chalkokondyles Laonikos Chalkokondyles (; – ), also latinized as Laonicus Chalcocondyles, was a Byzantine Greek historian from Athens. He is known for his '' Demonstrations of Histories'' in ten books, which record the last 150 years of the Byzantine Empi ...

also wrote that ''Itéas Kómi'' (Ἰταίας Κώμη) was an older Greek name for Söğüt, but since Greek "itéa" (Ιταία) and Turkish ''söğüt'' both mean "willow", Klaus Belke considers this "more of a learned translation" than a genuine older name for the town.

History

The town was originally known under the name Thêbásion and lay on a strategically important road between

Nicaea Nicaea (also spelled Nicæa or Nicea, ; ), also known as Nikaia (, Attic: , Koine: ), was an ancient Greek city in the north-western Anatolian region of Bithynia. It was the site of the First and Second Councils of Nicaea (the first and seve ...

and

Dorylaion Dorylaeum or Dorylaion (; ) was an ancient city in Anatolia. It is now an archaeological site located near the city of Eskişehir, Turkey. Its original location was about 10 km southwest of Eskişehir, at a place now known as Karaca Hisar ...

that was part of the Pilgrim's Road. It was conquered by

Ertuğrul Ertuğrul or Ertuğrul Ghazi (; died ) was a 13th-century uch bey (marcher-lord), who was the father of Osman I. Little is known about Ertuğrul's life. According to Ottoman Empire, Ottoman tradition, he was the son of Suleyman Shah, the leader ...

for the Anatolian Seljuks from the

Nicean Empire The Empire of Nicaea (), also known as the Nicene Empire, was the largest of the three Byzantine Greek''A Short history of Greece from early times to 1964'' by W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby, C. W. Crawley, C. M. Woodhouse (1967), p. 55: "There in ...

in 1231. Ertuğrul and his tribe (allegedly part of the

Kayı Kayı can refer to: * Kayı (tribe) The Kayı or Kayi tribe (Karakhanid language, Karakhanid: قَيِغْ ''qayïγ'' or ''qayig''; , ) were an Oghuz Turks, Oghuz Turkic peoples, Turkic people and a sub-branch of the Oghuz Turks, Bozok tribal f ...

tribe/branch of the

Oghuz Turks The Oghuz Turks ( Middle Turkic: , ) were a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia ...

who invaded

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

in the 12th and 13th centuries) migrated and settled there during the

Mongol invasion The Mongol invasions and conquests took place during the 13th and 14th centuries, creating history's largest contiguous empire, the Mongol Empire (1206–1368), which by 1260 covered large parts of Eurasia. Historians regard the Mongol devastati ...

after the

Battle of Köse Dağ The Battle of Köse Dağ took place in eastern Anatolia on 26 June 1243 when an army of the Sultanate of Rum, led by Sultan Kaykhusraw II, confronted an invading Mongol Empire, Mongol army under the general Baiju Noyan, Baiju and was decisively ...

. Ertuğrul ruled from here until his death and also made a mosque for the Muslims living there, including a well which could be used for Ablution. The mosque is still located in there as Ertuğrul Gazi Mosque. As the Rum Seljuk state collapsed, Söğüt became the centre of the Beylik of the Osmanoğulları or Osmanlı Beylik (which later expanded to become the

). Söğüt was the birthplace of

Osman I Osman I or Osman Ghazi (; or ''Osman Gazi''; died 1323/4) was the eponymous founder of the Ottoman Empire (first known as a bey, beylik or emirate). While initially a small Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman principality during Osman's lifetime, h ...

who continued the raids and conquests into Byzantine territory during his reign from 1299 to 1324. When Osman's son,

Orhan Orhan Ghazi (; , also spelled Orkhan; died 1362) was the second sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1323/4 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman I. In the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering mos ...

, came to power after his father's death, he renamed the Kayi tribe

Osmanli The Ottoman dynasty () consisted of the members of the imperial House of Osman (), also known as the Ottomans (). According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, under the leadership of Os ...

in honour of his father. The village of Thebasion until 1231 served during this time as the capital of the Osmanlı Beylik until the capture of the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

city of Proussa (

Bursa Bursa () is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region, Bursa is one of the industrial centers of the country. Most of ...

) in 1326 that succeeded it as the administrative centre of the Beylik. Söğüt, as the place became known, had a kaza centre in the Ertuğrul Sanjak of

Hüdavendigâr Vilayet The Hüdavendigâr Vilayet () or Bursa Vilayet after its administrative centre, was a first-level administrative division (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century it reportedly had an area of .Bilecik Bilecik is a city in northwestern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the seat of Bilecik Province and Bilecik District.İnhisar İnhisar is a town in Bilecik Province in the Marmara Region, Turkey, Marmara region of Turkey. It is the seat of İnhisar District.İnönü, Mihalgazi,

Sarıcakaya Sarıcakaya is a municipality and district of Eskişehir Province, Turkey. Its area is 382 km2, and its population is 4,621 (2022). The town lies at an elevation of . On August 15, 2023, there was a temperature of recorded in Sarıcakaya, s ...

and Yenipazar, central and eastern parts of

Bozüyük Bozüyük () is a city in Bilecik Province in the Marmara region of 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 Eu ...

and some villages of

Nallıhan Nallıhan is a municipality and district of Ankara Province, Turkey. Its area is 2,079 km2, and its population 26,553 (2022). It is 157 km from the city of Ankara. Its elevation is 625 m. Nallıhan is one of many towns that claim to ...

and Tepebaşı 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 ...

Modern era

Söğüt was occupied three times by the

Greek Army The Hellenic Army (, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece. The term '' Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is the largest of the three branches of the Hellenic Armed F ...

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 ...

: 8–11 January 1921, 24 March-21 April 1921 and 12 July 1921 – 6 September 1922. Today Söğüt is a small town in the humid river valley of

Turkish history The history of Turkey, understood as the history of the area now forming the territory of the Republic of Turkey, includes the history of both Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey) and Eastern Thrace (the European part of Turkey). These two prev ...

and life-size statues of the Ottoman

sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

s are exhibited in the Söğüt Ethnographical Museum. It is also the 3rd biggest district center in its province after

and

Bilecik Bilecik is a city in northwestern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the seat of Bilecik Province and Bilecik District.13th century in the Ottoman Empire Populated places in Bilecik Province Söğüt District District municipalities in Turkey Capitals of the Ottoman Empire