Osmaniye, town in southern Turkey, the capital of Osmaniye province, just north of the Gulf of Iskenderun (Gulf of Alexandretta) of the Mediterranean Sea. Osmaniye is surrounded by forests and carpentry and woodworking once dominated the economy; today the town is a processing center for the region's production of cotton, wheat, corn, soybeans, and pistachios. Osmaniye is on the road to Gaziantep, the capital of Gaziantep province. Osmaniye was settled by the Hittites around the 14th century BC, and archaeological remains from various times are found in the surrounding region. Most noteworthy is the 12th-century AD castle of Toprakkale, located to the west of Osmaniye. At a strategically important crossroads of its time, the castle changed hands between the Byzantines, Armenians, Crusaders, and Mamluks for two centuries before the region was captured by the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century. The town grew in the 19th century due to the empire's policy of forced settlement of nomads. Osmaniye was incorporated as a town in 1933, ten years after the founding of the Turkish Republic. Population (1990) 122,307.
