Sanliurfa

Sanliurfa Province or simply Urfa Province is a province in southeastern Turkey. The city of Sanliurfa is the capital of the province which bears its name. The population is 1,845,667 (2014). The province is considered part of Turkish Kurdistan and has a Kurdish majority with a significant Arab and Turkish minority.

The city, of great age, controls a strategic pass to the south through which runs a road used since antiquity to travel between Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. The modern name derives from the early Aramaic name Urhai, which was changed to Edessa when the town was refounded as a military settlement in the 3rd century BCE. Freeing itself from imposed Hellenism, Edessa, as capital of the principality of Osroëne, was a major centre of Syrian culture; it figured prominently in the conflicts between Parthia and Rome.