Van, Turkey

This article is about a city in Turkey. For other uses of Van, see Van (disambiguation).
Van
City
Official logo of Van
Emblem of Van Municipality
Van is located in Turkey
Van
Van
Coordinates: 38°29′39″N 43°22′48″E / 38.49417°N 43.38000°E / 38.49417; 43.38000
CountryTurkey
RegionEastern Anatolia
ProvinceVan
Government
 • MayorAbdullah Zeydan[1]
Elevation
1,726 m (5,663 ft)
Population
 (end 2022)[2]
 • City
525,016
City of Van (view from Van Kalesi)
Ruins of ancient Van

Van (Armenian: Վան; Kurdish: Wan[3]) is a city in eastern Turkey's Van Province, on the eastern shore of Lake Van. It is the capital and largest city of Van Province.

Van has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BCE, initially as Tushpa, the capital of the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BCE to the 6th century BCE, and later as the center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. Turkic presence in Van and in the rest of Anatolia started as a result of Seljuk victory at the Battle of Malazgirt (1071) against the Byzantine Empire.[4][5][6]

Van was densely populated by Armenians until the Armenian genocide in the 1910s. Today, it is mostly inhabited by Kurds.[7][8]

  1. ^ "Abdullah Zeydan of DEM Party reinstated as mayor of Van". ANF. Retrieved 3 April 2024.
  2. ^ "Van". citypopulation.de. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
  3. ^ "Lawmaker proposes changing name of eastern Van province to 'Wan' - Turkey News". Hürriyet Daily News. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  4. ^ Haldon, John. Byzantium at War AD 600 - 1453. p. 46. ISBN 1-84176-360-8.
  5. ^ Holt, Peter Malcolm; Lambton, Ann Katharine Swynford & Lewis, Bernard (1977). The Cambridge History of Islam. pp. 231–232.
  6. ^ Barber, Malcolm. The Crusader States Yale University Press. 2012. ISBN 978-0-300-11312-9. Page 9
  7. ^ Pinson, Mark (February 1985). "Justin McCarthy. Muslims and Minorities: The Population of Ottoman Anatolia and the End of the Empire. New York: New York University Press; distributed by Columbia University Press, New York. 1983. Pp. xii, 248. $35.00". The American Historical Review. 90 (1): 191–192. doi:10.1086/ahr/90.1.191-a. ISSN 1937-5239.
  8. ^ "Election outlook from Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeastern provinces". 12 May 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2024.