Edremit, Balıkesir
Edremit is a municipality and district of Balıkesir Province, Turkey. Its area is 682 km2, and its population is 167,901. It is situated a few kilometres inland from the Gulf of Edremit. The mayor of Edremit municipality is Selman Hasan Arslan.
History
The modern city of Edremit is named after the ancient Greek city of Adramyttion or Adramytteion, a city of Asia Minor on the coast of Aeolis which is near the modern city of Burhaniye.Tahtacı Turkmen, descendants of the army of Shah Ismail I, settled in the mountains near Edremit after their defeat in the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. By 1819, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn recorded that Edremit was only populated by "a few Greek fishermen". In 1912, the town had 6200 inhabitants, 1200 of whom were Greeks. At this time, the district had 19 Greek schools and roughly 600 pupils.
In May 1914, thousands of Muslim refugees who had fled from the Balkans arrived in the town of Edremit and proceeded to ransack the shops and homes of the town's Greek community. According to Arnold J. Toynbee, the Ottoman government armed and organised the refugees. Many Greek refugees found refuge in the town church before fleeing to the harbour where they were then granted passage to the nearby Greek island of Lesbos. Turks continued to massacre or expel Greeks in the following months in surrounding villages as part of the wider Greek genocide throughout Turkey.
Amidst the Greek Summer Offensive of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, Edremit was seized by the Army of Asia Minor on 19 June 1920 and a Turkish Nationalist counterattack near the town was repelled. It remained under Greek control until their withdrawal in late August 1922, following which the entire region was recaptured by the Turks and all remaining Greeks fled or were killed by the Turkish army.
Composition
There are 47 neighbourhoods in Edremit District:- Akçay
- Altınkum
- Altınoluk
- Arıtaşı
- Atatürk
- Avcılar
- Beyoba
- Bostancı
- Çamcı
- Camivasat
- Çamlıbel
- Cennetayağı
- Çıkrıkçı
- Cumhuriyet
- Darsofa
- Dereli
- Doyuran
- Eroğlan
- Gazicelal
- Gaziilyas
- Güre
- Güre-Cumhuriyet
- Hacıarslanlar
- Hacıtuğrul
- Hamidiye
- Hekimzade
- İbrahimce
- İkizçay
- İskele
- Kadıköy
- Kapıcıbaşı
- Kavlaklar
- Kızılkeçili
- Mehmetalanı
- Narlı
- Ortaoba
- Pınarbaşı
- Şahindere
- Sarıkız
- Soğanyemez
- Tahtakuşlar
- Turhanbey
- Tuzcumurat
- Yaşyer
- Yaylaönü
- Yolören
- Zeytinli
Climate
Edremit has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers, and cool, wet winters.Notable people
- Germanos Karavangelis, Metropolitan Bishop of Kastoria and later Amaseia
- Benjamin I of Constantinople, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople
- Panos Dukakis, father of American politician Michael Dukakis
- Sabahattin Ali, author and journalist
- Hülya Avşar, actress
- Caner Erkin, professional footballer
- Afra Saraçoğlu, actress