Gaziantep

Gaziantep, previously and still informally called Antep, is a city in the western part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region, some 185 kilometres (115 mi) east of Adana and 97 kilometres (60 mi) north of Aleppo,Syria. The city has two urban districts under its administration, Şahinbey and Şehitkamil. It is the sixth most populous city in Turkey. In 2014 the city of Gaziantep had a population of 1,465,019.

Gaziantep was formerly called Antep or Aïntab in Ottoman Turkish, Aintab  in Arabic. There are several theories for the origin of the name:

·         "Aïntap" may be derived from "Khantap", meaning "king's land" in the Hittite language.

·         "Aïn", an Arabic (and Aramaic) meaning "spring", and "tap" word of praise, may have combined to form the name.

·         "Antep" could be a corruption of the Arabic "ayn tayyib" meaning good spring

·         "Ayn dab" (Aramaic), or "Ayn debo", meaning "spring of the wolf"

·         "Ayin ţaba" means "good spring" in Aramaic (however, the Arabic name for the city is spelled with t, not ṭ)

The Crusaders called the city and its castle "Hantab", "Hamtab", and "Hatab".

In February 1921, the Turkish parliament honored the city as "Ghazi Ayintab" 'Antep the war hero' to commemorate its resistance to the French Siege of Aintab during the Franco-Turkish War, part of the Turkish War of Independence, and that name was officially adopted in 1928 as Gaziantep.

There are traces of settlement going back to the 4th millennium BC. The archaeological site of Tell Tülük, eponymous of the Neolithic Dulicien culture, are situated a few kilometers to the north of the city center.

Gaziantep is the probable site of the Hellenistic city of Antiochia ad Taurum ("Antiochia in the Taurus Mountains"). A "travel" blog of The Telegraph placed it among "world's 20 oldest cities" in a picture gallery in 2014.