Edirne history · History of Edirne
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History of Edirne
History of Edirne
The area around Edirne, thanks to its strategic position on the major routes towards Istanbul, Bosphorus, and onward to Asia, is one of the spots on earth that was heavily fought for?it has been site of no fewer 16 major battles and sieges since the days of Ancient Greeks.
Edirne’s former name is Adrianople (Hadrianoupolis), i.e. “City of Hadrianus”, named after the Roman emperor who founded the city on the site of Thracian village of Uskudama.
Then in 14th century, Ottomans captured the city and made it their capital, a situation which lasted until the Fall of Constantinople. Even after the dynasty moved to Constantinople in mid 15th century, Edirne was one of, if not the most, important centres of European part of the Otoman Empire, which once extended all the way well into Hungary, and still was some sort of semi-capital of the empire, with some sultans even favouring the city over Istanbul and mumbling (to no avail) about returning the throne back to the city. Between 1700 and 1750, Edirne was the fourth biggest city in Europe, with an estimated population of about 350,000 people.
However things dramatically changed with the beginning of 19th century and the city suffered heavy depopulation in the context of Russo-Turkish wars of 1829 and 1878 when Russians occupied all the way to western suburbs of Istanbul, Balkan Wars of late 19th/early 20th century, the loss of much of the hinterland and even outer suburbs to north and west when international borders non-existant before (when all was part of Ottoman Empire) were created close to the city in 1910s and 20s, and the Second World War when Nazi armies were only miles away from the city, just on the opposite banks of the rivers and most of the population was evacuated into interior Turkey. Some of whom could not flee died of following famine during this period. This depopulation trend slowly but constantly continued until very recently and the city is now home to barely 140,000 people. Although it is quite a lively city, especially compared to other Turkish cities of this size, however all you see today is just a fraction of its former glory.
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Edirne Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.