Mersin

About Mersin

Mersin is a large city and port on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. It is the provincial capital of the Mersin Province (formerly İçel). It is made up of four district governorates, each having its own municipality: Akdeniz, Mezitli, Toroslar and Yenişehir.

A larger metropolitan region which combines Mersin with Tarsus and Erdemli houses more than 1.7 million inhabitants. Çukurova International Airport (COV) situated 50 kilometres (31 miles) from Mersin city centre, is its closest international airport. There are ferry services from Mersin to Famagusta (Mağusa) in Northern Cyprus. Mersin is linked to Adana via Tarsus by way of TCDD trains.

The city was named after the aromatic plant genus Myrsine (Turkish: Mersin, Greek: Μυρσίνη) in the family Primulaceae, a myrtle that grows in abundance in the area. The 17th-century Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi also recorded in his Seyahatnâme that there was a clan named the Mersinoğulları (Sons of Mersin) living in the area. In the 19th century Mersin was also referred to as Mersina.

This coast has been inhabited since the 9th millennium BC. Excavations by John Garstang...

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