Şiran


Şiran, also Karaca, is a town and district of Gümüşhane Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is one of the points of passage between Eastern Anatolia and Black Sea regions of Turkey, in the sense that the western road departing from Erzincan towards the Zigana Pass has its last urban stop in Şiran. According to the 2010 census, population of the district is 17,600 of which 8,207 live in the town of Şiran. The district covers an area of, and the town lies at an elevation of.

Name

The name comes from Persian and means "the lions", although it is most likely to be an adaptation of the former Greek name of Cheriana adopted after the Turkish settlement in the region after and possibly even slightly before the Battle of Manzikert.

History

Many of the northern villages of the district were home to minority populations of Pontic Greeks until the 1922 Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, constituting the southern fringes of that community's extension. Some among the present population can also trace their roots to Greeks who had converted to Islam until as late as the end of the 19th century, as indicated by the Ottoman census and changed village names.

Places to see