Gəncə
Gəncə | ||
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State : | Azerbaijan | |
City with rayon status: | Gəncə | |
Coordinates : | 40 ° 41 ' N , 46 ° 22' E | |
Height : | 408 m | |
Area : | 129 km² | |
Residents : | 324,700 (2014) | |
Population density : | 2,517 inhabitants / km² | |
Time zone : | AZT ( UTC + 4 ) | |
Telephone code : | (+994) 22 | |
Postal code : | AZ2000 | |
License plate : | 20th | |
Community type: | City (şəhər) | |
Mayor : | Niyazi Bayramov | |
Website : | ||
Ganja ( Russian Гянджа Ganja ) also Germanized Ganja or Ganja (formerly Jelisawetpol - Elisavetpol' or Elizavetpol', then Kirovabad - Kirovabad, of traditional Persian nameگنجه, DMG Ganǧa / Ganǧe , 'treasury', Armenian Գանձակ Gandsak ), is the second largest city in Azerbaijan with around 324,700 inhabitants (as of 2014) . The urban area covers an area of 110 km².
geography
Gəncə is located in the north-west of the country at the foot of the Lesser Caucasus . The stream of the same name, which flows into the Kura , divides the city into two halves. The older part of the city is the western one. There are old fortifications and a mosque from the time of Abbas I. The climate is ideal for growing wine, fruits, vegetables and tobacco. The city is also a center of sericulture.
history
Gəncə was founded by Arabs in 859. The name was probably taken from an older capital of Azerbaijan . Initially only a small town, with the decline of the city of B Hauptstadtrdə , Gənc Nieder became the new capital of the Arrān region . In the Middle Ages, from the 10th to the 13th centuries, the city was a flourishing trading center on the Silk Road on the way to Tbilisi . The Kurdish Shaddadids ruled here from 951 to 1174 . In 1138 Gəncə was destroyed by an earthquake that claimed hundreds of thousands of victims, only to be rebuilt a few kilometers further west. The Georgians in the north took advantage of this and plundered the city under King Demetre I , taking one of the city gates with them. The gate is now installed in the Georgian monastery of Gelati . After the Shaddadids, the Atabegs of Azerbaijan ruled the entire region. During the clashes between the Georgians and the Atabegs , Gəncə was often attacked. In 1221 the Mongols stood in front of the city, but could not do anything against the strong fortifications. Nevertheless, they accepted money and gifts to pay for their retreat. In 1225 the Khorezm Shah Jalal ad-Din , who was constantly on the run from the Mongols, conquered the city and put an end to the Eldiguzid rule. The Mongols later managed to capture the city and burn it down. Gəncə could not regain its old status afterwards.
Under the Safavids , the city became part of Persia in the 16th century. The city administrators were given the title of Khan . In 1588 the rivals of the Safavids, the Turkish Ottomans , conquered the city. After a six-month siege, the Persians took the city back in 1606. Shah Abbas relocated it to a higher place in the southwest. In 1723 the Ottomans conquered the city again, but were then driven out by Nadir Shah in 1735 . In 1747 Gəncə became the capital of the khanate of the same name and nominally remained Persian until the Russo-Persian War (1804–1813) . On January 3, 1804, it was taken by the troops of the Russian-Georgian general Tsizianov . With the peace of Gulistan , Persia lost all of its territories north of the Aras River . After the conquest by Russia in 1804, Gəncə was called Jelisawetpol (Elizavetpolʹ) until 1918 , named after Tsar Alexander's wife Jelisaweta . In the next Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) the Persians tried to recapture the city, but were defeated on September 25, 1826 before Gəncə.
On December 24, 1905, Yelisavetpol was almost completely destroyed in connection with massacres between Armenians and "Tatars" (the Turkic-speaking population was generally referred to as the Tatars in the Russian Empire during this period ; here primarily today's Azerbaijanis ). 2000 people died in this ethnic unrest.
After the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan , Gəncə, renamed by the Müsavat government that had returned from Tbilisi , was the capital of the republic from May to September 1918, as long as Baku was in the hands of the Red Army .
From 1935 to 1989, the city was called Kirovabad (Kirovabad), named after the Soviet politician Sergei Kirov (1886-1934). In the city there was the prisoner of war camp 223 , Kirovabad for German prisoners of war of the Second World War .
Near the city are Göygöl , formerly known as Helenendorf, the first and largest German colony on the territory of today's Azerbaijan, founded by emigrants from Württemberg in 1819, as well as Şəmkir , the former Annenfeld , with the ruins of the medieval Old Ş Altmkir .
Economy and Transport
The city is the industrial (aluminum works, textiles , machinery, soap , food, wine , cottonseed oil ) center of the area.
Gəncə has a branch station on the Poti – Baku railway line , from which a line branches off to Xanlar .
Culture
Gəncə is also the cultural center of the area (universities, music school, philharmonic ). The city has some mosques that are well worth seeing . The football club PFK Kəpəz plays in the Gəncə city stadium with a capacity of 27,000 spectators .
Town twinning
Gəncə is twinned with the following cities:
sons and daughters of the town
- Mahsati , poet
- Nezāmi (1141–1209), poet
- Mirza Schaffy Wazeh (1794-1852), poet
- Xəlil bəy Xasməmmədov (1875–1947), politician
- Haro Stepanjan (1897–1966), composer
- Fikrət Əmirov (1922–1984), composer
- Murtuz Alasgarow (1928–2012), legal scholar and politician
- Artyom Terjan (1930–1970), Soviet-Armenian wrestler
- Artur Rasizadə (* 1935), politician
- Faiq Həsənov (* 1940), chess referee, official and television presenter
- Galib Mammadov (* 1946), composer
- Yuri Schchekochichin (1950–2003), Russian journalist and politician
- Vitaly Jelissejew (* 1950), Soviet rower
- Toğrul Əsgərov (* 1992), wrestler
- Rüfət Hüseynov (* 1997), light flyweight boxer
Climate table
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Average monthly temperatures and rainfall for Gəncə
Source: WMO ; wetterkontor.de
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See also
- Pogrom in Kirowabad (1988)
literature
- The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition , article Gandja by Wilhelm Barthold
Web links
- Gəncə . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)
- Website of the city of Gəncə (English / Azerbaijani / Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Population by sex, economic and administrative regions, urban settlements of the Republic of Azerbaijan at the beginning of the 2014 ( Memento from July 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Azərbaycan Respublikasının Dövlət Statistika Komitəsi (State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan)
- ↑ Maschke, Erich (ed.): On the history of the German prisoners of war of the Second World War. Verlag Ernst and Werner Gieseking, Bielefeld 1962–1977.
- ↑ Twin-cities of Azerbaijan , accessed October 13, 2016