Browse / Türkiye / Şanlıurfa / Birecik
Birecik
Şanlıurfatown
Birecik
Total population
93,668
Demographic figures from TurkStat. Overview below cites Wikipedia and may reference a different year.
City facts
Facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Overview
Birecik is a municipality and district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Its area is 912 km2, and its population is 93,866 (2023). It lies on the Euphrates.
Read more on WikipediaHistory & geography
History
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica identified Birecik with ancient Apamea and described it as opposite Zeugma, with which it was connected by a bridge of boats. At the same time, it added that "the place seems to have had a pre-Seleucid existence as Birtha, a name which revived under Roman rule". Later discoveries have shown that the identification with Apamea and its Zeugma (the word zeugma meant junction and referred to a junction of roads at a point where a pontoon bridge crossed a river) is false: Bali, some 17 kilometres upstream is now seen as the site of Zeugma, and there may have been no bridge of boats at Birtha/Birecik until the crossings at Zeugma and at Tell-Ahmar (further down) lost popularity. These, rather than the crossing at Birecik/Birtha may therefore be what the 1911 publication said "was used from time immemorial in the passage from North Syria to Haran (Charrae), Edessa and North Mesopotamia, and was second in importance only to that at Thapsacus, by which crossed the route to Babylon and South Mesopotamia." and William Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) clearly identified Birtha with Birecik, although at another point it seems to confuse it with "the Zeugma of Commagene", appears in the account by Zosimus of the invasion of Mesopotamia by Roman Emperor Julian in AD 363. Another possible impetus for Birtha's growth was when the Romans withdrew their legion from Zeugma after a Persian attack in the mid-3rd century; some of Zeugma's inhabitants may have moved to Birtha at that point. It already had a dock at the time that was collecting tolls; the income from the tolls rose dramatically after Suleiman the Magnificent's campaign to conquer Baghdad in 1534 (see table).
Geography
Birecik is located between Gaziantep to the west and the Urfa plateau to the east. The lowest geological layer in the Birecik area is the Gaziantep Formation, which dates to Eocene through Oligocene times. The average annual temperature in Birecik is , and average annual precipitation is . }}
Excerpted from the corresponding Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA).
Geography
Coordinates & boundaries from the US Census TIGER/Line shapefiles.
Climate
Air quality
Walkability
Amenities nearby
Wildlife & biodiversity
Earthquake history
Photos
Sights & places nearby
Notable people from here
People born within ~10 km, from Wikidata (CC0). Click any name for their Wikipedia article.
Geography & sun
Elevation, sunrise/sunset and daylight from Open-Meteo. Solar climatology from NASA POWER.
Nearby airports
Public attention
Pageview totals from the Wikimedia Pageviews API.
Books about Birecik
Search results from Open Library.
Recent natural events nearby
Ground air-quality sensors
Recently spotted species
Events
Gallery
Sources
- • Wikipedia
- • Wikidata
- • Open-Meteo / sunrise-sunset.org
- • Wikipedia Pageviews API
- • Open Library
- • Wikidata SPARQL (CC0) — population, area, elevation, inception, head of government, Commons image