Sanliurfa, city in southeastern Turkey, capital of Sanliurfa Province. Known in antiquity as Edessa and as Urfa until recent years, the city is about 120 km (about 75 mi) east of Gaziantep and about 40 km (about 25 mi) northeast of the Syrian border. A commercial center for the region's agricultural goods, Sanliurfa is connected by highway to Gaziantep in the west, and to Diyarbakir in the northeast. Sanliurfa sits at the heart of the Southeastern Anatolia Project, known by its Turkish acronym GAP. The project involves construction of a series of dams on the Euphrates River to produce electricity and provide water for irrigation and drinking. GAP is expected to boost agricultural production on the Altinbasak Plain. Harran University is the only higher education institution in Sanliurfa. The city's Archaeological Museum has a collection of finds and artifacts from Sanliurfa's rich history. Dominated by various cultures, religions, and empires throughout its long history, the city has a wealth of ruins and remnants from past eras. The oldest ruin in Sanliurfa is the Throne of Nimrod, a 2nd- or 3rd-century citadel with two standing columns.
Sanliurfa stands on the site of an ancient Mesopotamian city of Assyria named Urhai. The city was captured from the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, and later became known as Edessa. Controlled successively by local Arab rulers, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire, Edessa was a Christian city by the end of the 3rd century AD, and numerous monasteries were built. In the 7th century Edessa came under Muslim control and remained so until Christian Crusaders captured the city in 1098. They made it the capital of the County of Edessa, a powerful Crusader state that survived until Turks sacked the city in the mid-12th century. For the next several centuries Edessa changed hands between Seljuks, Egyptian Mamluks, the Turkic conqueror Tamerlane, and the Ottoman Empire. In 1637 the Ottomans regained the city permanently. It was renamed Urfa by the Ottomans in the 15th century, and Sanliurfa (Turkish for “glorious Urfa”) in 1983. Population 357,900 (1994 estimate).
