TURKEY
MANISA
MANISA
Manisa (
Turkish pronunciation:
[maˈnisa]) is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in quantity and variety of agricultural production. In fact, İzmir's proximity also adds a particular dimension to all aspects of life's pace in Manisa in the form of a dense traffic of daily commuters between the two cities, separated as they are by a half-hour drive served by a fine six-lane highway nevertheless requiring attention at all times due to its curves and the rapid ascent (sea-level to more than 500 meters at Sabuncubeli Pass) across Mount Sipylus's mythic scenery.
The historic part of Manisa spreads out from a forested valley in the immediate slopes of Sipylus mountainside, along Çaybaşı Stream which flows next to Niobe's "Weeping Rock" ("Ağlayan Kaya"), an ancient bridge called the "Red Bridge" ("Kırmızı Köprü") as well as to several tombs-shrines in the Turkish style dating back to the Saruhan period (14th century). Under Ottoman rule in the centuries that followed, the city had already extended into the undulated terrain at the start of the plain. In the last couple of decades, Manisa's width more than tripled in size across its vast plain formed by the alluvial deposits of the River Gediz, a development in which the construction of new block apartments, industrial zones and of Celal Bayar University campus played a key role.
The city of Manisa is also widely visited, especially during March and September festivals, the former festival being the continuation of a five-hundred-year-old "Mesir Paste Distribution" tradition, and also for the nearby Mount Spil national park. It is also a departure point for other visitor attractions of international acclaim which are located nearby within Manisa's depending region, such as Sardes and Alaşehir (ancient Philadelphia) inland. There is a Jewish community
MODERN MANISA
Modern Manisa
Manisa and some of its depending district centers have succeeded in solidly clinching an industrial production base in recent decades, in this supported both initially and continuously by the century-old wide-scale agricultural processing and related activities (production of flour and olive oil, basic textiles, leather goods, agricultural tools and instruments, cotton ginning).
According to the figures published by the Governorship, 694 companies in Manisa Province out of the province's total number of companies of 5.502 for 2007 are certified industrial enterprises and these employ a total of 44.449 people. Within the 694, Manisa center is in the lead with 238 enterprises engaged in industrial production, with the depending centers of Turgutlu (125 industrial enterprises), Akhisar (100), Salihli (78) closely contending, and Saruhanlı (33), Alaşehir (30), Kula (28), Demirci (20) and Soma (17) following.
Among leading industrial activities Manisa companies are engaged in are production of foodstuffs (196 companies), building materials (114), metal goods (85), as well as textile industry and clothing industry (46) and cotton ginning (43). The highest numbers of workforce are concentrated in electronics/electrical appliances, foodstuffs and construction industries.
The choice of Manisa as production base in the 1980s by the Turkish consumer electronics and white goods giant Vestel was an important boost for the present-day level of sophistication. Today Manisa's economic activities are far from being confined to a sole company. Manisa registered roughly 200m US dollars in FDI in 2004 and well-known businesses such as Italian white goods company Indesit, German electrical goods company Bosch, UK packaging company Rexam and Imperial Tobacco of the UK have invested in Manisa.
In 2004/2005 Manisa was chosen among 200 contestants as the Most Cost-Effective European city by the FDi magazine's yearly round of votes to determine European Cities and Regions of the Future, its extremely low office and industrial rents and competitive labor costs having been particularly noted.
Again for 2006/2007, Manisa was named among 89 European cities as the winner of the category of the Best Economic Potential in Europe, as runner-up for the categories Southern-Europe's City of the Future (winner for Turkey) and the Most Cost-Effective European city.The city also has a football team, Manisaspor, which plays in the Turkish Premier Super League under the home colors of red and white and away colors of black and white. Manisaspor's home ground is the Manisa 19 Mayis Stadi.
LALA PASHA MOSQUE
STATUE OF TURKS' LEAVING ERGENEKON
CITY CENTRE
TURGUTLU- Our town
DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE LIVE??
Turgutlu
For the township that presently carries Turgutlu's former name (Kasaba) in northern Turkey, see Kasaba.
Turgutlu
District
Central park in Turgutlu
Location of Turgutlu within Turkey.
Turgutlu
Location of Turgutlu
Coordinates:
Aegean
Manisa
Area
• District
472.86 km
2
(182.57 sq mi)Elevation
68 m (223 ft)
Population (2012)
• Urban
122,383
• District
146,087
• District density
310/km
2
(800/sq mi)• Summer (DST)
45400
236
45
Website
Turgutlu is a very large town and district of Manisa Province in the Aegean region of Turkey. According to the 2009 census, population of the district is 140,753 of which 115930 live in the city of Turgutlu.The district covers an area of 473 km
2
(183 sq mi) and the city lies at an elevation of 68 m (223 ft). The district is the most populous after the province center of Manisa in its province and it is the second most populous district center, i.e. excluding province centers, in Turkey's Aegean Region.The name derives from the name of the Turkish clan of "Turgutlu" (also cited as "Turgut" or "Turgutoğlu"), recorded as having provided the main support to the Beylik of Karaman during their time of existence
and mentioned in historical records as an important political entity as late as the 18th century Iran. Their settlement in Turgutlu region is thought to have taken place some time in the 15th century at the same time as the Ottoman unification of Anatolia which resulted in the demise of Karamanids. That nearby Manisa was the center where Ottoman shahzades (crown princes) received their education must have placed the clan once again in a non-negligible position in their relations this time with the Ottoman dynasty.The city was alternatively called Kasaba (often spelled as Casaba or Cassaba in the 19th century Western sources also), which simply means "the town". People of Turgutlu still often use the term "Kasabalı" to define themselves and despite the general signification of the word (Kasaba being "the town", Kasabalı means "the townspeople"), people across Turkey usually understand when Turgutlu is being specifically referred to.
The term Casaba melons derive from the name of the city, an echo of its 18th-19th century past when it was an important regional trade center and hub, located in the middle of a fertile alluvial plain and with access to outside markets through nearby İzmir.