Sivas

Sivas is a city in central Turkey, the seat of Sivas Province and Sivas District, set at an elevation of 1,278 meters in the broad valley of the Kizilirmak river. Its name derives from the Byzantine Greek Sivasteia, itself from the Koine Greek Sebasteia, honoring an emperor, and the city recorded a population of 365,274 in 2022. It functions as a trade and industrial center with rail repair shops and manufacturing of rugs, bricks, cement, and cotton and woolen textiles, serving as a communications hub on trade routes toward Iraq and Iran. The Sivas Congress, held from September 4 to 11, 1919, confirmed Ataturk's position as chair of the executive committee of the Turkish national resistance, and on July 2, 1993, thirty-seven people died when a mob set fire to the Madimak hotel in an episode now known as the Sivas massacre.