Samsun

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This article is about the city. For the province, see Samsun Province.
Not to be confused with Samson, Sanson, Sampson, or Samsung.

Samsun

Metropolitan municipality

Clockwise from top right: Samsunum-1 ship and coast, Statue of

Honor, Atatürk Culture Centre, Bandırma Ferry and National Struggle
Park Open Air Museum, Saathane Square, Store 55

Samsun
 Location of Samsun within Turkey

Show map of Turkey Show map of Black Sea Show all

Coordinates:  41°17′25″N 36°20′01″ECoordinates:  41°17′25″N 36°

20′01″E

Country Turkey
Region Black Sea
Province Samsun

Boroughs hide

List
 Atakum
 Canik
 İlkadım
 Tekkeköy

Government
 • Mayor Mustafa Demir (AKP)

Area
 • Metropolitan 1,055 km2 (407 sq mi)
municipality

Elevation 4 m (13 ft)

Population
 (2021)
 • Metropolitan 1,356,079
municipality
 • Density 573/km2 (1,480/sq mi)
 • Urban 710,000

Time zone UTC+03:00 (TRT)

Postal code 55
Area code (+90) 362

Licence plate 55
Climate Cfa

Website www.samsun.bel.tr www.samsun.gov.tr

Samsun, historically known as Sampsounta (Greek: Σαμψούντα) and Amisos (Ancient

Greek: Αμισός), is a city on the north coast of Turkey and is a major Black Sea port. In
2020, Samsun[a] recorded a population of 710,000 people.[1] The city is the provincial
capital of Samsun Province which has a population of 1,356,079. The city is home
to Ondokuz Mayis University, several hospitals, three large shopping
malls, Samsunspor football club, an opera and a large and modern manufacturing
district. A former Greek settlement,[2][3] the city is best known as the place where Mustafa
Kemal Atatürk began the Turkish War of Independence in 1919.[4]

Samsun seen from the sea

Contents

 1Name
 2History
o 2.1Ancient history
o 2.2Early Christianity
o 2.3Medieval history
o 2.4Modern history
 3Demographics
 4Government
 5Geography
o 5.1Rivers
o 5.2Climate
o 5.3Pollution
 6Architecture
o 6.1Mosques
o 6.2Churches
 7Public Squares and Parks
o 7.1Tallest Buildings
 8Transport
 9Economy
o 9.1Ports and shipbuilding
 9.1.1Coal imports from Donbas
o 9.2Manufacturing and food processing
o 9.3Local government and services
o 9.4Shopping
 10Culture
o 10.1The Atatürk Culture Center
o 10.2Museums
o 10.3Folk dancing
 11Education
  12Parks, nature reserves and other greenspace
 13Sports
 14International relations
o 14.1Twin towns—Sister cities
 15Notable people
 16Notes
 17See also
 18References
 19External links

Name[edit]
The present name of the city may come from its former Greek name of Amisós (Αμισός)
by a reinterpretation of eís Amisón (meaning "to Amisós") and ounta (Greek suffix for
place names) to [eí]s Am[p]s-únta (Σαμψούντα: Sampsúnta) and then
Samsun[5] (pronounced [samsun]).
The early Greek historian Hecataeus wrote that Amisos was formerly called Enete, the
place mentioned in Homer's Iliad. In Book II, Homer says that the ἐνετοί (Enetoi)
inhabited Paphlagonia on the southern coast of the Black Sea in the time of the Trojan
War (c. 1200 BC). The Paphlagonians are listed among the allies of the Trojans in the
war, where their king Pylaemenes and his son Harpalion perished.[6] Strabo mentioned
that the inhabitants had disappeared by his time. [7]
It has also been known as Peiraieos by Athenian settlers and even briefly
as Pompeiopolis by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.[8]
The city was called Simisso by the Genoese and during the Ottoman Empire the
present name was written in Ottoman Turkish: ‫صامسون‬ (Ṣāmsūn).

History[edit]
Ancient history[edit]
Parts of goose-headed and camel-headed Phrygian pottery vessels

Samsun Archaeology and Ethnographic Museum

People from Samsun. National costumes in Ottoman era, 1910s

Paleolithic artifacts found in the Tekkeköy Caves can be seen in Samsun Archaeology

Museum.
The earliest layer excavated of the höyük of Dündartepe revealed
a Chalcolithic settlement. Early Bronze Age and Hittite settlements were also found
there[9] and at Tekkeköy.
Samsun (then known as Amisos, Greek Αμισός, alternative spelling Amisus) was
settled in about 760–750 BC by Ionians from Miletus,[10] who established a flourishing
trade relationship with the ancient peoples of Anatolia. The city's ideal combination of
fertile ground and shallow waters attracted numerous traders. [11]
Amisus was settled by the Ionian Milesians in the 6th century BC,[2] it is believed that
there was significant Greek activity along the coast of the Black Sea, although the
archaeological evidence for this is very fragmentary. [12] The only archaeological evidence
we have as early as the 6th century is a fragment of Wild Goat style Greek pottery, in
the Louvre.[13]
The city was captured by the Persians in 550 BC and became part of Cappadocia
(satrapy).[8] In the 5th century BC, Amisus became a free state and one of the members
of the Delian League led by the Athenians;[14] it was then renamed Peiraeus
under Pericles.[15] Starting the 3rd century BC the city came under the control of
Mithridates I, later founder of the Kingdom of Pontus. The Amisos treasure may have
belonged to one of the kings. Tumuli, containing tombs dated between 300 BC and 30
BC, can be seen at Amisos Hill but unfortunately Toraman Tepe was mostly flattened
during construction of the 20th century radar base. [16]
The Romans conquered Amisus in 71 BC during the Third Mithridatic War.[17] and
Amisus became part of Bithynia et Pontus province. Around 46 BC, during the reign of
Julius Caesar, Amisus became the capital of Roman Pontus. [2] From the period of the
Second Triumvirate up to Nero, Pontus was ruled by several client kings, as well as one
client queen, Pythodorida of Pontus, a granddaughter of Marcus Antonius. From 62 CE
it was directly ruled by Roman governors, most famously by Trajan's appointee
Pliny. Pliny the Younger's address to the Emperor Trajan in the 1st century CE "By your
indulgence, sir, they have the benefit of their own laws," is interpreted by John Boyle
Orrery to indicate that the freedoms won for those in Pontus by the Romans was not
pure freedom and depended on the generosity of the Roman emperor. [18]
The estimated population of the city around 150 AD is between 20,000 and 25,000
people, classifying it as a relatively large city for that time. [19] The city functioned as the
commercial capital for the province of Pontus; beating its rival Sinope (now Sinop) due
to its position at the head of the trans-Anatolia highway. [14]
In Late Antiquity, the city became part of the Dioecesis Pontica within the
eastern Roman Empire; later still it was part of the Armeniac Theme.[20]
Samsun Castle was built on the seaside in 1192, it was demolished between 1909 and
1918.
Early Christianity[edit]

Interior of Protestant Church in Samsun

Panorama 1919 Museum in Samsun

Though the roots of the city are Hellenistic,[2] it was also one of the centers of an early
Christian congregation.[2] Its function as a commercial metropolis in northern Asia
Minor was a contributing factor to enable the spread of Christian influence. As a large
port city – the commercial capital of Pontus [21] – travel to and from Christian hotbeds like
Jerusalem was not uncommon.[22] According to Josephus, there was large
Jewish diaspora in Asia Minor.[23] Given that the early evangelist Christians focused on
Jewish diaspora communities, and that the Jewish diaspora in Amisus was a
geographically accessible group with a mixed heritage group, it is not surprising that
Amisus would be an appealing site for evangelist work. The author of 1 Peter
1:1 addresses the Jewish diaspora of the province of Pontus, along with four other
provinces: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God's elect, exiles scattered
throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia." (Peter
1:1) As Amisus would have been the largest commercial port-city in the province, it is
believed certain that the spread of Christianity in the region would have begun there.
[23]
 In the 1st century Pliny the Younger documents accounts of Christians in and around
the cities of Pontus.[24] His accounts center on his conflicts with the Christians when he
served under the Emperor Trajan and describe early Christian communities, his
condemnation of their refusal to renounce their religion, but also describes his tolerance
for some Christian practices like Christian charitable societies. [25] Many great early
Christian figures had connections to Amisus, including Caesarea Mazaca, Gregory the
Illuminator (raised as a Christian from 257 CE when he was brought to Amisus)
and Basil the Great (Bishop of the city 330–379 CE).[26]
Christian bishops of Amisus include Antonius, who took part in the Council of
Chalcedon in 451; Erythraeus, a signatory of the letter that the bishops of Helenopontus
wrote to Emperor Leo I the Thracian after the killing of Patriarch Proterius of Alexandria;
the late 6th-century bishop Florus, venerated as a saint in the Greek menologion; and
Tiberius, who attended the Third Council of Constantinople (680), Leo, the Second
Council of Nicaea (787), and Basilius, the Council of Constantinople of 879. The
diocese is no longer mentioned in the Greek Notitiae Episcopatuum after the 15th
century and thereafter the city was considered part of the see of Amasea. However,
some Greek bishops of the 18th and 19th centuries bore the title of Amisus as titular
bishops.[27] In the 13th century the Franciscans had a convent at Amisus, which became
a Latin bishopric some time before 1345, when its bishop Paulus was transferred to the
recently conquered city of Smyrna and was replaced by the Dominican Benedict, who
was followed by an Italian Armenian called Thomas. [28] No longer a residential diocese, it
is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.[29]
Medieval history[edit]
Historical building of the Governor's House ("Vali konağı") of Samsun in Turkey.

Replica of the cargo ship SS Bandırma, which carried Atatürk from Istanbul and arrived in Samsun on 19 May
1919, the date which traditionally marks the beginning of the Turkish War of Independence.

Views of Amisos Hill in Samsun.

Samsun was part of the Seljuk Empire,[30] the Sultanate of Rum, the Empire of

Trebizond, and was one of the Genoese colonies. After the breakup of the Seljuk
Empire into small principalities (beyliks) in the late 13th century, the city was ruled by
one of them, the Isfendiyarids. It was captured from the Isfendiyarids at the end of the
14th century by the rival Ottoman beylik (later the Ottoman Empire) under
sultan Bayezid I, but was lost again shortly afterwards.
The Ottomans permanently conquered the town in the weeks following 11 August 1420.
[31]

In the later Ottoman period, it became part of the Sanjak of Canik (Turkish: Canik

Sancağı), which was at first part of the Rûm Eyalet. The land around the town mainly
produced tobacco, with its own type being grown in Samsun, the Samsun-Bafra, which
the British described as having "small but very aromatic leaves", and commanding a
"high price."[32] The town was connected to the railway system in the second half of the
19th century, and tobacco trade boomed. There was a British consulate in the town
from 1837 to 1863.[33]
Samsun, then home to an Armenian community numbering over 5,000, was heavily
affected during the Armenian genocide of 1915, the last Armenian Zoroastrians –
the Arewordik, or children of the sun, lived there. According to local eyewitnesses, such
as Hafiz Mehmet, many of the Samsun Armenians were drowned in the Black Sea.
[34]
 Others were deported from Samsun and ultimately massacred in provinces further
south. After the Armenian Genocide, there remained eleven Islamized Armenians and
two Armenian physicians. Armenian orphans who had survived were given to Turkish
families.[35] The depopulation of the region of its Armenian residents caused significant
economic harm.