Erzurum

Erzurum or Erzerum , city (1990 pop. 241,344), capital of Erzurum prov., E Turkey. It is an agricultural trade center and a railroad center. Agricultural products include sugar beets, wheat, barley, and vegetables. Metal and leather handicrafts are also produced. Although its origins are obscure, the city was known in the 5th cent. AD as Theodosiopolis, an important Byzantine frontier fortress. It was later held by various peoples, including the Armenians, Persians, and Seljuk Turks, before being captured by the Ottoman Turks in the early 16th cent. The first Turkish Nationalist congress was held there in 1919. It is the site of Atatürk Univ.

Erzurum, Turkey Camacha, Theodosiopolis, Arzan ar‐Rūm An ancient settlement called Camacha on which was built a Byzantine fortress in 443 named after either Theodosius I the Great (347–95), Roman Emperor of the East (379–92) and both of the East and the West (392–5), or, more likely, Theodosius II (401–50), Roman Emperor of the East (408–50). The fortress‐city fell to the Arabs in 635, to the Seljuk Turks in 1071, and in 1515 it was taken by the Ottoman Turks under Selîm I the Grim (1470–1520), Sultan (1512–20). The Arabs called it Arzan ar‐Rūm ‘The Land of the Romans’, that is, the Byzantine Christians, and the Turks retained the name from which the present one is derived.