Sinop, Turkey: Map

Categories: Black Sea port cities and towns in Turkey > Paphlagonia > Roman towns and cities in Turkey > Ancient Greek sites in Turkey > Populated coastal places in Turkey

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Sinop ( , Sinópe) is a city with a population of 47,000 on İnce Burun (İnceburun, Cape Ince), by its Cape Sinop (Sinop Burnu, Boztepe Cape, Boztepe Burnu) which is situated on the most northern edge of the Turkish side of Black Sea

coast, in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, in modern-day northern Turkey

, historically known as Sinope. It is the capital of Sinop Province

History

Long used as a Hittite port which appears in Hittite sources as "Sinuwa" (J. Garstang, The Hittite Empire, p. 74), the city proper was re-founded as a Greek colony from the city of Miletus

in the 7th century BC (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.15; Diodorus Siculus 14.31.2; Strabo 12.545). Sinope flourished as the Black Sea port of a caravan route that led from the upper Euphrates valley (Herodotus 1.72; 2.34), issued its own coinage, founded colonies, and gave its name to a red arsenic sulfate mined in Cappadocia, called "Sinopic red earth" (Miltos Sinôpikê) or sinople. It escaped Persian domination until the early 4th century BC, and in 183 BC it was captured by Pharnaces I and became capital of the kingdom of Pontus. Lucullus conquered Sinope for Rome in 70 BC, and Julius Caesar established a Roman colony there, Colonia Julia Felix, in 47 BC. Mithradates Eupator was born and buried at Sinope, and it was the birthplace of Diogenes, of Diphilus, poet and actor of the New Attic comedy, of the historian Baton, and of the Christian heretic of the 2nd century AD, Marcion.

It remained with the Empire of the East or the Byzantines. It was a part of the Empire of Trebizond from the sacking of Constantinople

by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 until the capture of the city by the Seljuk Turks of Rûm in 1214.

After 1261, Sinop became home to two successive independent emirates following the fall of the Seljuks: the Pervâne and the Candaroğlu. It was captured by the Ottomans in 1458.

In November 1853, at the start of the Crimean War, in the Battle of Sinop, the Russia

, under the command of Admiral Nakhimov, destroyed an Ottoman frigate squadron in Sinop, leading Britain and France to declare war on Russia.

Sinop was also a US military base that was important for intelligence during the cold war era. The US base was closed in 1992.