Concept

Sivas

Summary
Sivas (Latin and Greek: Sebastia, Sebastea, Σεβάστεια, Σεβαστή, Sebastia) is a city in central Turkey. It is the seat of Sivas Province and Sivas District. Its population is 365,274 (2022). The city, which lies at an elevation of in the broad valley of the Kızılırmak river, is a moderately-sized trade centre and industrial city, although the economy has traditionally been based on agriculture. Rail repair shops and a thriving manufacturing industry of rugs, bricks, cement, and cotton and woolen textiles form the mainstays of the city's economy. The surrounding region is a cereal-producing area with large deposits of iron ore which are worked at Divriği. Sivas is also a communications hub for the north–south and east–west trade routes to Iraq and Iran, respectively. With the development of railways, the city gained new economic importance as junction of important rail lines linking the cities of Ankara, Kayseri, Samsun, and Erzurum. The city is linked by air to Istanbul. The popular name Sebastian derives from Sebastianòs, Σεβαστιανός, meaning someone from the city. The name of the city is a truncated form of its Byzantine Greek name Sivasteia from the Koine Greek name Sebasteia (Σεβαστεία), meaning that it was named in honour of an emperor using the title Sebastos, the Greek equivalent of Augustus. In Kurdish it is called Sêwas. Little is known of Sivas' history prior to its emergence in the Roman period. In 64 BC, as part of his reorganization of Asia Minor after the Third Mithridatic War, Pompey the Great founded a city on the site called "Megalopolis". Numismatic evidence suggests that Megalopolis changed its name in the last years of the 1st century BC to "Sebaste", the feminine form Sebastos, the Greek equivalent of Augustus. The name "Sivas" is the Turkish version deriving from the name Sebasteia, as the city was known during the late Roman (Byzantine) empire.
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