Urfa

Urfa, officially Sanliurfa, is a city in southeastern Turkey and capital of Sanliurfa Province, on a plain about 80 kilometers east of the Euphrates River, with an urban population of 596,637 at the 2022 census. Founded as Edessa by Seleucus I Nicator around 303 BC, it became capital of the Crusader County of Edessa in 1098 and is revered as the City of Prophets for its traditional association with Abraham and its role as an early center of Christianity; the Turkish National Assembly granted it the title Sanli, meaning glorious, in 1984 in recognition of citizen resistance during World War I, and the nearby site of Gobekli Tepe, 12 kilometers northeast and dated to the 10th millennium BC, is considered the world's oldest known temple.