Gaziantep, a large Turkish municipality of about two million inhabitants, is a major manufacturing hub, home to refugees and a melting pot of ethnic groups. The city, also known as Antep, one of its original names, was inhabited by the earliest civilizations and has been an important trading center since ancient times.
A city that is millennia old, Gaziantep is a place that has undergone many changes.
“It has a very long and complicated history,” said Jesse Casana, a professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College who has spent decades doing fieldwork in Turkey and northwestern Syria. “It is a dynamic place with a very rich history that has been contested by various imperial powers.”
Here is an overview.
Gaziantep’s geography has made it a dynamic place for centuries.
More than 10,000 years ago, Gaziantep was a Neolithic settlement near the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of agriculture, said Professor Casana. Some of the oldest ruins of human civilization can be found beneath the city.
Under the Roman Empire, Gaziantep became a stopover along the Silk Road, the main trade route connecting Asia and Europe. Since then, Gaziantep has become a center of commerce and influenced by many civilizations.
Its proximity to fertile soil, with extensive olive groves and vineyards, and its role as a junction between the Mediterranean, Europe and Asia, also make it the subject of frequent territorial disputes. . Professor Casana said it was previously controlled by the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Ottoman Empire.
Gaziantep is an important manufacturing center.
The city is a hub for economic activity, with exports of more than $593 million per month as of 2019, according to the city. industrial room. Much of its economy is supported by manufacturing, especially textiles and food processing speak.
Its textile industry, consisting mostly of smaller businesses, manufactures carpets and machine-made clothing. Gaziantep is Turkey’s most important production center for carpets and the synthetic fibers used to make them, the department said.
Gaziantep has become a food processing center with agricultural areas located nearby. The center of pistachio farming in Turkey, this room is also famous for its baklava, a pastry made from nuts grown nearby.
Some other areas focus on textiles and food processing of Gaziantep. The metal and machinery industries produce tools used to make carpets and food. The plastics industry produces acrylic, polypropylene, and polyester that are used to make fibers. And Gaziantep’s paper business produces cardboard for food packaging and textiles.
The city is home to many different ethnic groups.
Professor Casana said Gaziantep’s population is a mix of many communities, including the majority Turks.
Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, Gaziantep has been home to some 470,000 Syrian refugees, the Commission reports. United Nation. But even before the war, convoys of buses carrying Syrians crossed the border almost daily to shop in Gaziantep as Turkey pushed. stronger economic ties with Syria.
Syrians, who now make up more than 20% of the population, have change Gaziantep, invest and bring business skills and cheap labor. Many of the city’s textile factories were built by Syrian migrants. Turkish and Syrian companies share buildings and workers. Hundreds of cafes, restaurants and pastry shops serve Syrians.
Professor Casana said there is also a large Kurdish community, mainly concentrated in a few towns and surrounding areas. The Kurds participated in a protracted conflict with the Turkish government. The Islamic State, which has been fighting the Kurds in Syria, has also targeted the Kurds in Gaziantep, including in 2014. Kurdish wedding bombingAn attack that left more than 50 people dead.
