Adana

City (pop., 2000: 1,091,000), south-central Turkey, on the Seyhan River. An agricultural and industrial centre and one of Turkey's largest cities, it probably overlies a Hittite settlement that dates from c. 1400 BC. Conquered by Alexander the Great in 335–334 BC, it was later a Roman military station. It came under the rule of the at the end of the 7th century AD and changed hands intermittently until the late 14th century, when it fell into the hands of the Ramazan dynasty, a Turkmen group that remained influential even after the city's conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1516. Adana's prosperity has long derived from the fertile valleys behind it and its position as a bridgehead on the trade routes connecting Anatolia and the Arabian Peninsula.

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