Bornova
Bornova is a municipality and district of İzmir Province, Turkey. Its area is 220 km2, and its population is 454,470. It is the third largest district in İzmir's metropolitan area and is almost fully urbanized at the rate of 98.6 percent, with correspondingly high levels of development in terms of industries and services. Bornova's center is situated at a distance of to the northeast of the traditional center of İzmir and from the coastline at the tip of the Gulf of İzmir to the west. Bornova district area is surrounded by the district areas of Yunusemre and Menemen to the north, Kemalpaşa to the east, Buca to the south, and Konak and Karşıyaka to the west, where the larger part of İzmir's urban area extends. Bornova is home to Ege University's main campus and associated hospital, one of the largest and foremost medical centers in western Turkey.
Name and origins
During the Ottoman period, Bornova was called بیرونآباد "Birunabad", often rendered as "Bournabad" or "Bournabat" in Western sources, which is a Persian name meaning "outside village". Although befitting a settlement slightly outside a greater metropolitan zone, that the name "Birunabad" is based on an adjective in Bornova's case, makes an association with an earlier Byzantine name more likely. In fact, under the Byzantine and Nicean Empires the region was called "Prinobaris" and was notable for being a source of considerable revenues for the Haghia Sophia from its attached properties here, and was for this reason alternatively known as "Hagiosophitike chora". As such, Birunabad, Bournabat and now Bornova could be converted forms of this name.The recent discovery, within the boundaries of Bornova district, of Yeşilova Höyük, on which the fieldwork continues, seems to indicate that Bornova's alluvial plain, fed by several small streams, was the site of the first settlement by the Neolithic-Calcolithic inhabitants of the region across present-day İzmir's metropolitan area.
Administrative divisions
The municipality of Bornova was established in 1881 and the town became a district center in 1957. Aziz Kocaoğlu, mayor of İzmir Greater Metropolitan Municipality from 2004 to 2019, was the mayor of Bornova before taking over his office for the city as a whole.There are 45 neighbourhoods in Bornova District:
- Atatürk
- Barbaros
- Beşyol
- Birlik
- Çamiçi
- Çamkule
- Çiçekli
- Çınar
- Doğanlar
- Egemenlik
- Eğridere
- Ergene
- Erzene
- Evka 3
- Evka 4
- Gaziosmanpaşa
- Gökdere
- Gürpınar
- İnönü
- Işıklar
- Karaçam
- Karacaoğlan
- Kavaklıdere
- Kayadibi
- Kazım Dirik
- Kemalpaşa
- Kızılay
- Koşukavak
- Kurudere
- Laka
- Meriç
- Merkez
- Mevlana
- Naldöken
- Rafetpaşa
- Sarnıç
- Serintepe
- Tuna
- Ümit
- Yakaköy
- Yeşilçam
- Yeşilova
- Yıldırımbeyazıt
- Yunusemre
- Zafer
19th century Bornova and the great Levantine mansions
With a total bed capacity of only 400 across the district, most of which is accounted by the suburb's single large hotel, the accommodation facilities are rather limited inside Bornova, and the hotels in İzmir's center are generally preferred for a night's stay.Despite that, visitors on a leisure tour are a common sight in Bornova's streets due to the town's historical center having been much in favor in the 19th century among İzmir's European and Levantine residents who left very visible architectural traces, in the form especially of the Levantine mansions of İzmir.
Indeed, Bornova used to be a summer residence for many foreign consuls and wealthy businessmen fleeing the stagnantly hot weather in central İzmir to seek the cooler breeze of the slopes of Mount Yamanlar, the departure point of Bornova in its beginnings. This move by diplomats and the rich was at the very origin of the town's growth in the beginning of the 19th century, until which time Bornova used to be a small forestry village, recorded in Ottoman times principally in connection with the task of guarding the mountain passes leading to İzmir which was assigned to its inhabitants in exchange of certain tax reliefs.
Moving to Bornova during summer for a month or two had entered among the habits of İzmir's European/Levantine inhabitants since the preceding century, but while their rich increasingly opted to live here permanently, the city's Europeans/Levantines with more modest social conditions seem to have ceased to come to Bornova, even for the summer, by the 1820s.
The mansions and residences built in the 19th century, most of which reached our day, restored and in public or private use, are usually still named after the prestigious names of the former owners, such as Whittall, Maltass, Paterson, Giraud, Edwards, Belhomme, Pandespanian. There is a small Catholic Church named the "Church of Santa Maria" in the main square of Bornova and an Anglican chapel and Bornova Anglican Cemetery nearby, both dating from the 19th century, landmarks of Bornova's cosmopolitan past. Despite the obvious luxurious style of the residences they built, these new inhabitants did not always have lives in all comfort. The soar observed in the course of the 19th century in a particular form of brigandage, sometimes interpreted as a form of social resistance and usually associated with Efe tradition and with the coastal strait along the Aegean Sea as well as its valleys reaching inland, often had Bornova as its frontier land. A number of notorious cases of kidnapping involving brigands and the owners of these residences and high demands of ransom occurred frequently basis for almost a hundred years.
Bornova held the first football match ever in the Ottoman Empire, played in 1890 between British sailors on shore leave against young men of İzmir. Turkey's first athletic contest was also held in Bornova in 1895.
Modern Bornova
Bornova greatly expanded in the last decades from its nest under Mount Yamanlar, where the historic and popular Turkish quarter of Erzene was juxtaposed by Levantine settlements, and today almost fully covers its surrounding Bornova plain, formerly renowned for its fertility. The previous tangerine orchards, as well as the famed okra gardens synonymous with the town's name, which had a secure place among the dozen cultivars, traditional and commercial, of Turkey, were for the most part replaced by apartment blocks and the notoriety of Bornova's okras are now taken over by those of Urla. The urban growth occurred the direction both of the seashore and to the east towards Kemalpaşa, as well as to the south in Altındağ zone and İzmir-Aydın motorway.The population's growth rate reached as high as 30-35% in certain years. New neighborhoods consisting of block apartments were built rapidly, some of which carry the name of the real estate developers who had initiated the construction boom, such as Özkanlar and Çamkıran. Bornova could nevertheless preserve its orderly outlook, with privately -and legally- built constructions and social housing projects keeping at pace with the increase in population, and very few slum-type residences, of which many boomtowns across Turkey are still scourged with. Bornova district counts 147,037 residential buildings.
A number of incidents occurred in recent times on count of delays in improvements along the river beds of the four streams that cross Bornova to join the Gulf of İzmir, while residences were mushrooming around these. Furthermore, two cement mills and stone quarries, opened in what were empty fields decades ago, are now located next to residences, and the pollution caused by the former establishments is an ongoing issue of concern.
Transport
A "square", more in the form of crossroads in a roundabout, slightly past the entry into Bornova coming from Manisa and which continues towards İzmir center, is the focal point of motor vehicle traffic in Bornova, with Ege University campus and large department stores extending to its south and residential areas served by smaller streets to the north.Bornova center is served by a railway connection since 1867, initially by a branch line of İzmir-Kasaba railway completed during the same decade.
Bornova is currently the eastern terminus of İzmir's subway rapid transit line whose extension continues, and access to and from the city center, as well as between various localities of İzmir is relatively easy with either public or private transport.
Since İzmir's central bus terminal, the huge İZOTAŞ in Altındağ quarter where an estimated fifty thousand people arrive or depart each day, as well as the road junctions connecting İzmir and the regions to its south, to Istanbul, Ankara and the rest of Turkey, are located within the boundaries of Bornova, intercity connections are made relatively easy.
Education
Bornova has 80 primary schools and 102 kindergartens. At secondary-level education, there are 19 high schools and 22 professional schools. The figures for the student and teacher's corps are shown in the table. The average student per teacher ratio is, with primary education the most congested at 25,5%.Higher-level educational institutions are assembled under the structure of Ege University, which brings together 11 faculties, 7 institutes, 6 higher education centers and 7 higher professional schools and 25 research centers. The university had 42,693 students and 2,895 academic staff in 2007.
In adult education, the state-managed Public Training Center and Professional Training Centers offer courses in various practical fields with a total of ~100 trainers, and 12,356 people including participants in literacy courses received courses in these establishments in 2006. Illiteracy is an issue almost exclusively restricted to new migrants into Bornova, and especially to women among these. There are also a number of private initiatives in the same field, such as the 29 companies offering driver's license courses.