Çorlu

Sister cities

• Kumanovo
• Krushari
• Bugojno
• Dulovo
• Tutrakan
• Babruysk
• Kardzhali
• Putian

History

Bronze Age relics have been found in various areas of Thrace including Çorlu and by 1000 BC, the area was a Phrygian-Greek colony. The area was subsequently controlled by the Greeks, Persians, Romans, and Byzantines. During Roman and Byzantine times, the town was referred to as Tzouroulos, or Syrallo, and later became Tiroloi (Τυρολόη). The spelling Zorolus is used for the Latinised form of the name of the episcopal see identified with present-day Çorlu in the Catholic Church's list of titular sees. Some writers have identified the Roman town of Caenophrurium (the stronghold of the Caeni and the place where Emperor Aurelian was murdered in 275) with Çorlu, but this seems unlikely as the Antonine Itinerary lists Cenofrurium as two stages and 36 Roman miles () closer to Byzantium than Tzirallum, and the Tabula Peutingeriana shows the locations separately. There were important Roman and Byzantine fortifications at Caenophrurium, which was a base for controlling large areas of Thrace. Following a tumultuous early history, Çorlu was brought under Ottoman control by Sultan Murad I, who immediately ordered the destruction of the Roman walls as part of a policy of opening up the town under the Pax Ottomana. In the Ottoman period, the town remained an important staging post on the road from Constantinople to Greece. The nearby village of Uğraşdere was the site of the battle in which Sultan Beyazid II defeated his son Selim I in August 1511; a year later Beyazid II was defeated by Selim, becoming the first Ottoman father to be overthrown by his son. Beyazid II died in Çorlu on his way to exile in Dimetoka. Coincidentally, Selim himself died in Çorlu nine years into his reign. Both father and son are buried in Istanbul. In the late 18th century, when the Ottoman Empire began…