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Malatya

Malatya
Metropolitan municipality
Views from the city
Views from the city
Location of Malatya within Turkey.
Location of Malatya within Turkey.
Malatya is located in Turkey
Malatya
Malatya
Location of Malatya within Turkey.
Coordinates: 38°21′N 38°18′E / 38.350°N 38.300°E / 38.350; 38.300Coordinates: 38°21′N 38°18′E / 38.350°N 38.300°E / 38.350; 38.300
Country Turkey
Region Eastern Anatolia
Province Malatya
Government
 • Mayor Ahmet Çakır (AKP)
Area
 • District 922.16 km2 (356.05 sq mi)
Elevation 954 m (3,130 ft)
Population
 • District 488 247
Time zone FET (UTC+3)
Postal code 44xxx
Area code(s) 0422
Licence plate 44
Website www.malatya.bel.tr

Malatya (Armenian: Մալաթիա Malat'ya; Kurdish: Meletî‎; Syriac: ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐMalīṭīná; Ottoman Turkish: مالاتيا‎) is a large city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of years. The Assyrians called the city Meliddu. Strabo says that the city was known "to the ancients" as Melitene (Ancient Greek Μελιτηνή), a name adopted by the Romans following Roman expansion into the east. According to Strabo, the inhabitants of Melitene shared with the nearby Cappadocians and Cataonians the same language and culture.

The site of ancient Melitene lies a few kilometres from the modern city in what is now the village of Arslantepe and near the dependant district center of Battalgazi (Byzantine to Ottoman Empire). Present-day Battalgazi was the location of the city of Malatya until the 19th century, when a gradual move of the city to the present third location began. Battalgazi's official name was Eskimalatya (Old Malatya); until recently, it was a name used locally.

Arslantepe has been inhabited since the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, nearly 6,000 years ago. From the Bronze Age, the site became an administrative center of a larger region in the kingdom of Isuwa. The city was heavily fortified, probably due to the Hittite menace from the west. The Hittites conquered the city in the fourteenth century B.C. In Hittite, melid or milit means "honey", offering a possible etymology for the name, which was mentioned in the contemporary sources of the time under several variations (e.g., Hittite: Malidiya and possibly also Midduwa;Akkadian: Meliddu;Urar̩tian: Melitea).


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