Şanlıurfa Province

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Image:Sanliurfa Turkey Provinces locator.jpg

Şanlıurfa (also simply known as "Urfa") is a province in Southeast Anatolia, Turkey. The city of city is the capital of the province which bears its name.

Population (in 1990) 1,000,000. 551,124 in the district centers, 450,331 in rural villages. By 2000, the population of Şanlıurfa province has grown to 1,436,956, and that of Şanlıurfa city, 829,000.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Politics
4 External links

[edit] Geography

This article or section does not cite its references or sources.
You can help Wikipedia by introducing appropriate citations. This article has been tagged since December 2006.

Area 18,584 km² (7,173 sq. miles), the largest province of Southeast Anatolia with:

Adıyaman to the north;
Syria to the south;
Mardin and Diyarbakır to the east;
Gaziantep to the west;

Şanlıurfa includes several major components of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (in Turkish Güneydogu Anadolu Projesi (GAP)) designed to:

exploit the hydropower potential of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers;
dramatically expand irrigation for agriculture; and
develop the economy of the region.

This very large-scale, state-sponsored development project involved the damming, redirecting, hydroelectric tapping and other utilization of rivers in this broad, semi-arid region. (The rivers then flow into Syria and Iraq). The GAP project includes 22 dams, hundreds of miles of irrigation works.

Even before GAP, Şanlıurfa Province had the largest share of cultivated and cultivable land in the GAP region, due to its flatness and highly fertile, agricultural land. The Şanlıurfa and Harran Plains extend over an area of about 1,500 km² (579 sq. miles). Irrigating these plains is one of the most important components of GAP.

According to the 1990 census, Şanlıurfa Province contained 148,521 households, and the average household size was 6.74 persons. 71 % of household heads described their occupation as farming. In 1992, Şanlıurfa had the highest concentration of land ownership in Turkey, with a landless rate of 48%. While 5% of the families in the province owned 65% of the land, the vast majority (70%) owned only 10%.

Şanlıurfa’s average annual growth rate between 1985 and 1990 was 4.6%, considerably higher than both the national and regional averages.

[edit] History

For the history of the city please see Şanlıurfa and Edessa, Mesopotamia.

[edit] Politics

The politics of Şanlıurfa Province are still widely shaped by the electoral adherence of a number of Zaza clans (aşiret). In particular, the districts along the Euphrates river have long been a power base for the traditional center-right DYP, formerly under Süleyman Demirel and Mrs. Tansu Çiller, and now under ex-chief of police Mr. Mehmet Ağar.

Turkey's ruling AKP did come first in 2004 local elections with a comfortable 43.04 %, but the DYP, currently out of parliament, seems to be recovering under the new leadership of Mr. Ağar, who is known for his intimacy with the local feudal structures.

Much effort is deployed by DEHAP, campaigning on Kurdish-identity consciousness arguments, to attract clan votes, but this is complicated by polemics of the definitions of a Kurdish and a distinct Zaza identity. Several clans were at the forefront of the struggle against PKK terrorism in the 1980's and the 1990's. Still, DEHAP registered some success in 2004 local elections, coming second in the province with 16.95 %, rising from 12,06 % in 1999, with a faithful electorate in the two districts bordering Diyarbakır Province. DEHAP traditionally avoids the districts bordering Syria and populated by ethnic Arabs, where they did not even name candidates for the 2004 elections.

MHP, campaigning on Turkish-identity consciousness arguments, after having scored an exceptional 7,18 % in 1999, has in 2004 ebbed back to a more usual 2,97 %.

The center-left CHP usually obtains a modest share, slightly below 10%.

Approximately 40% of the province’s population is Kurdish, 40% is Arab, and 20% is Turkish. There are tiny communities, a few thousand people, remaining of the once-widespread Yezidi culture.