İzmir

İzmir is a port city on the Aegean coast of western Turkey, at the head of the Gulf of İzmir. Its old name was Smyrna, and local tradition counts it among the places where Homer was born. The Clock Tower in Konak Square, built in 1901 for the silver jubilee of the Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid II, became the symbol of the city.

The first Smyrna stood on the hill of Bayraklı on the north shore of the gulf from the early first millennium BC. After Alexander the Great, the city was refounded on the slopes of Mount Pagus in the 4th century BC and grew into a rich Roman port. The Ottoman Empire took it in the 15th century, and from the 17th century its harbor shipped figs, raisins, cotton and silk to Europe, with Levantine and Greek merchants living along the waterfront. The International İzmir Fair has been held each summer since the 1920s.

Pınar, the dairy and meat brand of Yaşar Holding, has its headquarters in the city, and Tariş, a cooperative of farmers, sells the figs, raisins, cotton and olive oil of the Aegean region. The Port of İzmir at Alsancak handles containers and exports of fruit, tobacco and marble.

The Agora of Smyrna, rebuilt under Marcus Aurelius in the 2nd century, keeps columns and vaulted basements of the Roman market. Kemeraltı, the bazaar quarter behind Konak Square, has winding lanes of shops, old inns and mosques. The ruins of Ephesus, south of the city, include the Library of Celsus and a theater cut into the hillside.