Trabzon

(or Trebizond), a city in northeastern Turkey. Capital of Trabzon Vilayet. Population, 97,200 (1975).

Trabzon is a port on the Black Sea, through which hazelnuts, tobacco, wool, and construction lumber are exported. It is the point of origin of a highway to Iran that passes through Erzurum. The city has an airport. Industry includes food processing, the production of cement, shipbuilding, and fishing. There is also a university.

Trabzon was founded by Greeks from Sinope in about the mid-seventh century B.C. (or c. mid-eighth century B.C.). It was an important port and trade center in the ancient world. In the second century B.C., it became part of Pontus, and in 63 B.C., part of the Roman province of Bithynia and Pontus. From the fifth to early 13th centuries A.D., it was part of the Byzantine Empire, and from 1204 to 1461 it was the capital of the Empire of Trebizond. In 1461 it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and became part of the Ottoman Empire.

Trabzon is divided into the Upper City, which is surrounded by bastions, and the Lower City, which extends from the bastions to the harbor. The Upper City contains a walled citadel dating from the Empire of Trebizond, with ruins of the imperial palace (13th-14th centuries), the Panagia Chrysocephalus (tenth century, rebuilt in the 13th century; since 1461, the Orta Hisar Mosque), and Hagia Sophia (built after 1204; rebuilt from 1248 to 1263), which contains remnants of sculpture and frescoes. The Lower City contains the Church of St. Anne (early eighth century; rebuilt in 884–885; since the 15th century, the Kücük Aivazil Mosque) and the Church of St. Eugenius (13th century; since the 15th century, the Yeni Cuma Mosque).