İzmit

About İzmit

İzmit is a municipality and the capital district of Kocaeli Province, Turkey. Its area is 480 km2, and its population is 376,056 (2022). The capital of Kocaeli Province, it is located at the Gulf of İzmit in the Sea of Marmara, about 100 km (62 mi) east of Istanbul, on the northwestern part of Anatolia. Kocaeli Province (including rural areas) had a population of 2,079,072 inhabitants in 2022, of whom approximately 1.2 million lived in the largely urban İzmit City metro area made up of Kartepe, Başiskele, Körfez, Gölcük, Derince and Sapanca (in Sakarya Province). Similar to Istanbul, the area of İzmit is coterminous with its province. It is also the most populated of any city or town in Turkey whose name isn't shared with the province it is located in.

İzmit was known as Nicomedia and Ólbia in antiquity, and was the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire between 286 and 324, during the Tetrarchy introduced by Diocletian. Following Constantine the Great's victory over co-emperor Licinius at the Battle of Chrysopolis (modern Üsküdar) in 324, Nicomedia served as an interim capital city for Constantine until 330, when Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was officially proclaimed as the new capital of the Roman Empire. During the Ottoman Empire, İzmit was the capital of the Sanjak of Kocaeli. At present, the Istanbul-İzmit area is one of the main industrial regions in Turkey.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.