Izmir: From Historic Ruins to Vibrant City Life
Izmir is a metropolitan city on the western coast of Anatolia and the capital of the eponymous province. It is the third largest city in Turkey after Istanbul and Ankara, and the largest urban agglomeration on the Aegean coast. Izmir has over 3000 years of recorded urban history, but the area has been inhabited for 8500 years since the Neolithic. In classical antiquity, the city was known as Smyrna (Greek: Σμύρνη, Smýrni/Smýrnē) – a name that remained in use in English and various other languages until 1930, when government efforts led to the gradual replacement of the original Greek name with its Turkish counterpart İzmir. Izmir is situated advantageously at the end of a gulf that stretches into a deep indentation, in the middle of the western Anatolian coast. For most of its history, Izmir has been one of the major trading cities of the Mediterranean. Where Izmir is Located and How to Get There Izmir is located at the northwestern tip of Turkey, about 560 km southwest of Ankara and 3...