Başkale: Difference between revisions
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==City features== |
==City features== |
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Başkale is best known historically for being a military station. Its now ruined fortress was once occupied by a Kurdish [[bey]] (chieftain) and lies a short distance uphill from the township. The fortress is a good example of [[Urartu|Urartian]] architecture. |
Başkale is best known historically for being a military station. Its now ruined fortress was once occupied by a Kurdish [[bey]] (chieftain){{fact}} and lies a short distance uphill from the township. The fortress is a good example of [[Urartu|Urartian]] architecture.{{fact}} |
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==People== |
==People== |
Revision as of 10:18, 6 June 2007
Başkale (Kurdish; Elbak, Armenian; Albayrak, and alternatively rendered as Bashkala or Pashgala) is a town in south-eastern Turkey in Van Province. The town figured prominently in earlier centuries as the capital of the Ottoman vilayet of Kurdistan Province, Ottoman Empire, (in Hakkari sanjak), before the final dissolution of the empire in 1923. The name means "head fortress" (head as in located at the head of the valley) in Turkish.
Geography
Situated 2300 metres above sea level, in the valley of the Great Zab River, the town stands on the eastern slope of high barren mountains on the eastern fringe of the south eastern Taurus Mountains range. Owing to the high elevation, the winter is extremely severe and the summer very brief.
History
One of many events in the string of tensions which led to World War I was a massacre of approximately 50 Gawarnai Assyrians by Muslims on 30 October 1914 at Başkale in the local government centre. Armenians of Başkale were later deported and massacred by Turks and Kurds during the 1915-1918.[1]
City features
Başkale is best known historically for being a military station. Its now ruined fortress was once occupied by a Kurdish bey (chieftain)[citation needed] and lies a short distance uphill from the township. The fortress is a good example of Urartian architecture.[citation needed]
People
The population of Başkale is estimated at 14,114 (2000 census), principally Kurds[citation needed]. The surrounding mountainous districts contain numerous tribes of Kurds and Assyrians.[citation needed]
External links
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}
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