Bursa
Country: Turkey · 2,901,396 inhabitants · Founded: 202
Attractions
Wikivoyage
Bursa is a large city in the Southern Marmara region of Turkey, 20 km inland from the Marmara coast. It's the country's fourth-largest city, with a population of 2,161,990 in 2021, and with another million living in the wider metro area. It's mostly modern, industrial and concrete-ridden; earning its living from textiles, agricultural produce and the automobile industry. However, it has a lot to offer for history buffs as the first capital of the Ottoman Empire and one of the end destinations of the Silk Road. It is crowded with historic mosques, tombs, caravanserais, bazaars and parks, in addition to being one of the best food cities in Western Turkey. In 2014, Bursa along with the nearby village of Cumalıkızık was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The city serves as a gateway to the iconic forests and ski slopes of Mount Uludağ.
Wikipedia
Bursa (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈbuɾsa]) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. It is the fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region after Istanbul. The province has a population of 3,238,618 while the city has a population of over 2.2 million. Bursa is one of the centers of Turkey's automotive production, becoming an industrial center of the country. The city provides various places of interest.
Historically, Bursa was known as Prusa or Prousa (Ancient Greek: Προῦσα), or Prusa near Olympus or Prusa under Olympus (Προῦσα ἐπὶ τῷ Ὀλύμπῳ, Προῦσα πρὸς τῷ Ὀλύμπῳ). The city became the capital of the Ottoman Empire (back then the Ottoman Beylik) from 1335 until the 1360s.
A more recent nickname is Yeşil Bursa ("Green Bursa") referring to the parks and gardens located across the city, as well as to the vast, varied forests of the surrounding region. Bursa has a rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, and the city's main landmarks include numerous edifices built throughout the Ottoman period. Bursa also has thermal baths, old Ottoman mansions, palaces, and several museums. Mount Uludağ, known in classical antiquity as the Mysian Olympus or, alternatively, Bithynian Olympus, towers over the city and has a ski resort.
The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat, according to some stories, are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa in the 14th century.