Giresun
| Giresun | ||
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| Municipality | ||
General view of eastern part of Giresun city
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 Giresun
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| Coordinates: 40°54′55″N 38°23′22″E / 40.91528°N 38.38944°ECoordinates: 40°54′55″N 38°23′22″E / 40.91528°N 38.38944°E | ||
| Country | Turkey | |
| Province | Giresun | |
| Government | ||
| • Mayor | Kerim Aksu (CHP) | |
| Area | ||
| • District | 295.71 km2 (114.17 sq mi) | |
| Population (2012) | ||
| • Urban | 100,712 | |
| • District | 123,129 | |
| • District density | 420/km2 (1,100/sq mi) | |
| Climate | Cfa | |
| Website | www |
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Giresun (pronounced [ɡiɾeˈsun]) is the provincial capital of Giresun Province in the Black Sea Region of northeastern Turkey, about 175 km (109 mi) west of the city of Trabzon.
Giresun was known to the ancient Greeks as Choerades or more prominently as Kerasous or Cerasus (Ancient Greek: Κερασοῦς), the origin of the modern name.
Pre-Greek and Greek linguist Robert S. P. Beekes has stated that the name Kerasous corresponds to κερασός (kerasós) "cherry" + -ουντ (a place marker). Thus, he notes that the Greek root of the word "cherry", κερασός (kerasós), predates the name of the city, Beekes holds that the ultimate origin of the word cherry (and thus the name of the city) is from a Pre-Greek substrate, likely of Anatolian origin, given the intervocalic σ in Κερασοῦς and the apparent cognates of it found in other languages the region.
However, Black Sea Region researcher Özhan Öztürk has said that Kerasous instead corresponds to κέρας (keras) "horn" + -ουντ (a place marker), for the prominent horn-shaped peninsula that the city is situated on (compare with the Greek name for the horn-shaped Golden Horn waterway in Istanbul, Κέρας (Keras) "Horn"). According to Öztürk, the toponym later mutated into Kerasunt (sometimes written Kérasounde or Kerassunde), and the word "cherry" (as well as its cognates found in other local languages) was derived from the name of the city itself, rather than the other way around as Beekes claims.
Pharnaces I of Pontus renamed the city Pharnacia after himself after he captured the city in 183 BCE, and it was called by that name as late as the 2nd century CE. According to A. H. M. Jones, the city officially reverted to its original name, Kerasous, in 64 CE. Whatever the etymology, the Greek name Kerasous was Turkified into Giresun after Turks gained permanent control of the region in the late 15th century.
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Wikipedia