Bursa

Bursa (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈbuɾsa]) 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 after Istanbul.The province has a population of 3,238,618 while the city has a population of over 2.2 million. Bursa is one of the centers of Turkey's automotive production, becoming an industrial center of the country. The city provides various places of interest.

Bursa became the capital of the Ottoman Empire (back then the Ottoman Beylik) from 1335 until the 1360s. A more recent nickname is Yeşil Bursa ("Green Bursa") referring to the parks and gardens located across the city, as well as to the vast, varied forests of the surrounding region.

Bursa has a rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, and the city's main landmarks include numerous edifices built throughout the Ottoman period. Bursa also has thermal baths, old Ottoman mansions, palaces, and several museums. Mount Uludağ, known in classical antiquity as the Mysian Olympus or, alternatively, Bithynian Olympus, towers over the city and has a ski resort.

The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat, according to some stories, are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa in the 14th century.

The earliest known human settlement near Bursa's current location was at Ilıpınar Höyüğü around 5200 BC. It was followed by the ancient Greek city of Cius, which King Philip V of Macedon granted to Prusias I, King of Bithynia, in 202 BC. King Prusias rebuilt the city with the advice of General Hannibal of Carthage, who took refuge under him after losing a war against the Roman Republic, and renamed it Prusias (Ancient Greek: Προῦσα; sometimes rendered as Prussa). The city was also reverred to as Prusa ad Olympum after its location at the foot of the Bithynian Olympus (present day Uludağ Mountain). After 128 years of Bithynian rule, Nicomedes IV, the last King of Bithynia, bequeathed the entire kingdom to the Roman Republic in 74 BC. An early Roman Treasure was found near Bursa in the early 20th century, composed of woman's silver toilet articles. It is currently reserved in the British Museum.

Under Byzantine rule, The city prospered after the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I built a palace there. the city then became a garrison city in 562, where imperial guards were stationed. Already by the mid-6th century, Bursa was known as a famous silk textile manufacturing centre.

Bursa became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. As a result, the city witnessed a considerable amount of urban growth such as the building of hospitals, caravanserais and madrasas throughout the 14th century, with the first official Ottoman mint established in the city. After conquering Adrianople (now Edirne) in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new capital city in 1363. No longer a capital city, Bursa still retained its spiritual and commercial importance in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid Külliyesi (Bayezid I theological complex) in Bursa between 1390 and 1395 and the Bursa Ulu Cami (Bursa Grand Mosque) between 1396 and 1400. After the defeat and capture of Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara by the forces of Emir Timur in 1402, the latter's grandson, Muhammad Sultan Mirza, had the city pillaged and burned. Despite this, Bursa remained as the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa was 45,000 in 1487.

During the Ottoman period, Bursa was a hub of the Ottoman silk trade. The city housed the distributions of silk and other luxury commodities from the east, particularly Ming China, to the rest of the Mediterranean region and to the Italian city-states, particularly Genoa and Florence. Bursa was also known for its numerous hammams (bathhouses) built during the reign of Sultan Suleiman I such as the Yeni Kaplıca. The Devshirme system was also implemented in Bursa and its surroundings where it was negotiated between the authorities and the locals. Sometime during a levy in 1603-4, the villagers of Eğerciler (currently called Eğerce), a Christian village in Bursa and also a provider of sheeps to Istanbul, declared that the children of the village were very much needed as shepherds. They also asserted that even though they were not obliged to give any children to the army, the officers took some anyway, and that they should be returned. The villagers' claim of tremendous need of future shepherds was taken seriously by the state, and a decree commanded the return of the children. From 1867 until 1922, Bursa was the capital of Hüdavendigâr vilayet. As it was a significant cultural and trade hub, traders, most of whom were Armenians, became very wealthy.