Edremit

History

The modern city of Edremit is named after the ancient city of Adramyttion () or Adramytteion (Ἀδραμύττειον), a city of Asia Minor on the coast of Aeolis which is near the modern city of Burhaniye. Tahtacı Turkmen, descendants of the army of Shah Ismail I, settled in the mountains near Edremit after their defeat in the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. By 1819, Henry Alexander Scammell Dearborn recorded that Edremit was only populated by "a few Greek fishermen". In 1912, the town had 6200 inhabitants, 1200 of whom were Greeks. At this time, the district had 19 Greek schools and roughly 600 pupils. In May 1914, thousands of Muslim refugees who had fled from the Balkans arrived in the town of Edremit and proceeded to ransack the shops and homes of the town's Greek community. According to Arnold J. Toynbee, the Ottoman government armed and organised the refugees. Many Greek refugees found refuge in the town church before fleeing to the harbour where they were then granted passage to the nearby Greek island of Lesbos. Turks continued to massacre or expel Greeks in the following months in surrounding villages as part of the wider Greek genocide throughout Turkey. Amidst the Greek Summer Offensive of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, Edremit was seized by the Army of Asia Minor on 19 June 1920 and a Turkish Nationalist counterattack near the town was repelled. It remained under Greek control until their withdrawal in late August 1922, following which the entire region was recaptured by the Turks and all remaining Greeks fled or were killed by the Turkish army.

Most-observed species

• Common Chaffinch

  Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  92
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  89
• Barn Swallow

  Hirundo rustica Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  81
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  64
• Western Jackdaw

  Coloeus monedula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  64
• Eurasian Jay

  Garrulus glandarius (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  63
• Great Cormorant/European Shag

  Phalacrocorax carbo (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  62
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  62

Most recent

• M 4.4 — 2026-06-27
  9 km ENE of Míthymna, Greece
• M 4.1 — 2025-11-22
  13 km WSW of Sındırgı, Turkey
• M 4.6 — 2025-11-13
  11 km W of Sındırgı, Turkey
• M 4.1 — 2025-11-11
  14 km WSW of Sındırgı, Turkey
• M 4.7 — 2025-11-10
  12 km W of Sındırgı, Turkey
• M 4.2 — 2025-10-27
  11 km W of Sındırgı, Turkey