Gaziantep
(2002 pop. 795,000). Gaziantep, previously Aintab ("good spring") and commonly referred to as Antep, is the capital of Gaziantep Province in southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, forty-five kilometers from the Syrian border. Situated where important routes converge and first settled by the Hittites, Antep assumed importance only after the Byzantines captured Duluk (Doliche, now Dulukbaba) in 962. During the First Crusades (1096–1099) Antep was ruled by Armenian Philaretus and fell to the Byzantines in 1150 only to be captured by the Seljuks of Konya in 1151. After falling to various peoples, it became part of the province of Aleppo in 1153.
Timur (Tamerlane, 1336–1405) captured Antep in 1400, and various Turkmen dynasties conquered it before it fell to the Ottomans in 1516. Antep was occupied by the English in 1919 and by the French from 1920 to 1921. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881–1938), founder of the Turkish Republic, renamed it and added the prefix Gazi ("Muslim warrior for the faith") in honor of the Turkish nationalist forces who withstood a ten-month siege by French troops at the end of World War I.
Today Gaziantep is renowned for its pistachio nuts (antep fıstigi) and the grape preserve called pekmez. Economically the city has benefited from the GAP Project (Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi, Southeastern Anatolia Project), a massive hydroelectric project under construction since 1974.
Further Reading
Statistical Yearbook of Turkey, 1998. (1998) Ankara, Turkey: Devlet Istatistik Enstitusu.
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