Tuesday 19th of March 2024, 08:41 CET
Ankara
Capital
Turkey
Inhabitants: 3000000
Last updated: September 9, 2003
 
Capital
Capital of Turkey and Ankara province, Ankara is Turkey's largest city after Istanbul and is primarily an administrative city, but it is also an important commercial, industrial, and cultural center. Grains, vegetables, and fruit are grown nearby. Manufactures include food products, wine, farm machinery, iron and steel, textiles, and cement. Angoran goats bred there are famous for the mohair made from their coats. Tourism is increasingly important, and the service sector is expanding.

History
Known in ancient times as Ancyra and later as Angora, the city was an important commercial center at least as early as Hittite times (18th cent. B.C.). in the 1st cent. A.D. it became the capital of a Roman province. It flourished under Augustus; in the ruins of a marble temple dating from his reign (31 B.C.-A.D. 14) was found the Monumentum Ancyranum, a set of inscribed tablets valuable as a record of Augustan history. The city was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in the mid-14th cent., and in 1402 Timur defeated and captured Sultan Beyazid I there.

Rapid growth
In the late 19th cent. Ankara declined and by the early 20th cent. was a small town known only for the production of mohair. In 1920, Kemal Ataturk made the city the seat of his Turkish nationalist government with a commitment to modernization. In 1923 it replaced Istanbul as the capital of all Turkey, partly to break with tradition and partly to take advantage of its central location. The city grew rapidly from the 1920s; in the 1960s its population almost doubled.

Sights
There are few historic remains. Ankara's leading modern monument is the Ataturk mausoleum, completed in 1953. The huge Kocatepe Mosque opened in 1987. The city has numerous museums, including the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, and is the seat of the Ankara, Hacettepe, and Middle East Technical universities.

Source: 1upInfo.com
 
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