Çiğli

Çiğli
İzmir Natural Life Park (Doğal Yaşam Parkı) an open air zoo and a theme park recently opened in Çiğli's depending Sasalı locality
Çiğli
Coordinates: 38°29′N 27°3′E / 38.483°N 27.050°E / 38.483; 27.050Coordinates: 38°29′N 27°3′E / 38.483°N 27.050°E / 38.483; 27.050
Country	Turkey
Province	İzmir
Area
• District	96.93 km2 (37.42 sq mi)
Population (2012)
• Urban	168,599
• District	168,599
• District density	1,700/km2 (4,500/sq mi)

Çiğli is a metropolitan district of the city of İzmir in İzmir Province, Turkey. Its area covers the northern end of the boundaries of İzmir Metropolitan Municipality. Çiğli district area neighbors that of Karşıyaka, another metropolitan district, to the south and the west, and that of İzmir's external depending district of Menemen to the north. Çiğli is divided into 23 subdistricts and has one separate depending municipality (Sasalı), where a large open air zoo (Sasalı Natural Life Park) was opened in 2008. Çiğli also has one depending village, Kaklıç. The populations of each of these two settlements are roughly the same at around 3000 people.

Çiğli is a settlement that sprang up and acquired a status rather recently. Its name draws reference from the humid marshlands of the delta of the River Gediz which used to cover the area of the entire area of Çiğli. Çiğ meaning dew in Turkish.

The population is formed almost entirely in full by recent immigration, starting as of the late-19th century with the Turkish refugees of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). During the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) some among the Turkish population of the region found a safer refuge in Çiğli's marshlands, especially in the general sense of despair caused by the Menemen massacre of 17 June 1919. In the first years of the Republic of Turkey, Çiğli acquired the status of a village under its present name, and was settled by Turks of Western Thrace. The village grew large enough to become a township with own municipality, and the population was further increased when Çiğli welcomed the survivors of two successive earthquakes in Varto and Hınıs, adjacent districts in eastern Anatolia, in 1946 and 1966, which had claimed thousands of lives. Economic immigration into Çiğli from eastern Anatolia continues at a steady pace since then and even the mayor is Diyarbakır-born. It had a municipality between 1956 and 1981. It finally separated from Karşıyaka and became a district in 1992.