Urfa

Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa (ʃanˈɫɯɾfa), is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. The city was known as Edessa in Hellenistic times. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km east of the Euphrates River. Its climate features extremely hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters. About northeast of the city is the famous Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest known temple, which was founded in the 10th millennium BC. The area was part of a network of the first human settlements where the agricultural revolution took place. Because of its association with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history, and a legend according to which it was the hometown of Abraham, Urfa is nicknamed the "City of Prophets." Religion is important in Urfa. The city "has become a center of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs" and "is considered one of the most devoutly religious cities in Turkey". The city is located 30 miles from the Atatürk Dam, at the heart of the Southeast Anatolia Project, which draws thousands of job-seeking rural villagers to the city every year. The oldest name for the city is the Syriac Orhay, which is derived from either the Semitic root -r-w-ʿ, meaning "to bring water", or the Greek name name "Orrha", meaning "beautiful flowing water". James Silk Buckingham claimed that in earlier times, the city was known as Ruha, and with the Arabic article, it became Ar-Ruha, evolving into Urha, and eventually Urfa. Carsten Niebuhr observed that Turks called the city El-Rohha in the 18th century, although Buckingham who later visited Urfa, disagreed and noted that all Turks, and most Arabs and Kurds in the surrounding countryside called it Urfa, while a small portion of the Christians called it as the former. The city is called Riha in Kurdish. The city is known as Ուռհա, Urha, in Armenian. In 1984, the Turkish National Assembly granted Urfa the title "Şanlı", meaning "glorious", in honor of its citizens' resistance against British and French troops at the end of the First World War, hence the present name "Şanlıurfa".