Bronze Age Inhabited by Luwians and
Hurrians, Kizzuwatna had an autonomous governance under
Hittite protection, but they had a brief period of independence from the 1500s to 1420s BC. According to the
Hittite inscription of
Kava, found in
Hattusa (
Boğazkale),
Kizzuwatna was ruling Adana, under the protection of the Hittites, by 1335 BC. With the collapse of the
Hittite Empire around 1191–1189 BC, native
Denyen sea peoples took control of Adana and the plain until around 900 BC.
Iron Age Then
Neo-Hittite states were founded in the region with the
Quwê state centred on Adana. Quwê and other states were protected by the
Neo-Assyrian Empire, though they had periods of independence too. After the Greek migration into Cilicia in the 8th century BC, the region was unified under the rule of the
Mopsos dynasty and Adana was established as the capital. Bilingual inscriptions of the ninth and eighth centuries found in
Mopsuestia (modern Yakapınar) were written in
hieroglyphic Luwian and
Phoenician. The Assyrians took control of the regions several times before their collapse in 612 BC. Cilicians founded the
Kingdom of Cilicia in 612 BC with the help of
Syennesis I. The kingdom was independent until the invasion of the
Achaemenid Empire in 549 BC, then became an autonomous
satrapy of the Achaemenids until 401 BC. The uncertain loyalty of Syennessis during the rebellion of
Cyrus the Younger led
Artaxerxes II to abolish the Syennesis administration and replace it with a centrally appointed satrap. Archaeological remains of a procession reveal the existence of
Persian nobility in Adana.
Alexander the Great entered Cilicia through the
Cilician Gates in 333 BC. After defeating the Persians at the
Battle of Issus, he installed his own satrap,
Balacrus, to oversee the region's administration. His death in 323 BC marked the beginning of the
Hellenistic era, as Greek replaced Luwian as the language of the region. After a short time under
Ptolemaic dominion, the
Seleucid Empire took control of the region in 312 BC. Adanan locals adopted a Greek name -
Antioch on Sarus - for the city to demonstrate their loyalty to the Seleucid dynasty. The adopted name and the motifs illustrating the personification of the city seated above the
river-god Sarus on the city's coins, suggest a special appreciation of the rivers which were a strong part of the Cilician identity. The Seleucids ruled Adana for more than two centuries until they were weakened by a civil war which led them to offer allegiance to
Tigranes II, the King of Armenia who conquered a vast part of the
Levant. Cilicia became a vassal state of the
Kingdom of Armenia in 83 BC and new settlements were founded by Armenians in the region.
Romano-Byzantine era , 2nd century AD In the early period of Roman rule,
Zoroastrianism, that had been introduced to the region by the Persians, was still observed in Cilicia as was Judaism which attracted many sympathisers. As home to some of the earliest Christian missionary efforts, Cilicia welcomed Christianity more easily than some other provinces. and was a signatory of the joint letter of the bishops of
Cilicia Prima to
Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian in 458 protesting at the murder of
Proterius of Alexandria. Ioannes participated in the
Third Council of Constantinople in 680. No longer a residential bishopric, Adana is today listed by the
Catholic Church as a
titular see.
Period of Byzantine and Islamic rivalry At the
Battle of Sarus in April 625,
Heraclius defeated the forces of
Shahrbaraz of the
Sasanian Empire that were stationed on the east bank of the river, after a fearless charge across the bridge built by the Emperor
Justinian (now Taşköprü). During the reign of
Caliph Omar, Muslims who are commanded by
Khalid ibn Walid, launched columns to raid Cilicia, going as far as Tarsus, in the autumn of 638. The Byzantines defended the region from the encroaching
Islamic Caliphates throughout the 7th century, but it was finally conquered in 704 by the
Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. Under Umayyad rule, Cilicia became a
no man's land frontier between Byzantine Christian and Arab Muslim forces.
Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia Suleiman ibn Qutulmish, the founder of the
Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, annexed Adana in his campaign in 1084. During the
Crusades, Cilicia had been criss-crossed by invading armies until it was eventually captured by the forces of the
Armenian Principality of Cilicia in 1132, under its king,
Leo I. It was retaken by
Byzantine forces in 1137, but the Armenians regained it again in around 1170. During the Armenian era, Adana continued as a centre for handicrafts and international trade as part of an ancient network from
Asia Minor to
North Africa, the Near East and
India.
Venetian and
Genoese merchants frequented the city to sell goods imported through the port at
Ayas.
Ramadanid Emirate entering the city. Adana Castle and the city walls seen at back were demolished by them in 1836. The Mamluks built garrisons in Tarsus,
Ayas and
Sarvandikar (Savranda), and left the administration of the plain of Adana to
Yüreğir Turks who had already formed a Mamluk authorised
Türkmen Emirate in the
Camili area, just southeast of Adana, in 1352. The
Emir, Ramazan Bey, designated Adana his capital, and led the Yüreğir Turks as they settled the city. The
Ramadanid Emirate, was
de facto independent throughout the 15th century as a result of being a
thughūr in Ottoman-Mamluk relations. In 1517,
Selim I incorporated the emirate into the Ottoman Empire after his conquest of the Mamluk state. The Ramadanid Beys held onto the administration of the new Ottoman
Sanjak of Adana by a hereditary title until 1608.
Ottoman and Egyptian eras (demolished in 1970s) The
Ottomans terminated the Ramadanid administration in 1608 after the
Celali rebellions and began direct rule from Constantinople through an appointed
Vali. In late 1832, the Vali of
Egypt,
Muhammad Ali Pasha, invaded
Syria, and reached Cilicia. The
Convention of Kütahya signed on 14 May 1833 ceded Cilicia to the
de facto independent
Egypt. At that time, the Sanjak of Adana's population of 68,934 had hardly any urban services. The first neighbourhood (
Verâ-yı Cisr) east of the river was founded and
Alawites were brought from Syria to work in the flourishing agricultural lands. İbrahim Paşa, the son of Muhammad Ali Paşa, demolished Adana Castle and the city walls in 1836. He built the first canals for irrigation and transportation and also built a water system for the residential areas of the town, including wheels that raised the water of the river for public fountains. After the
Oriental crisis, the Convention of Alexandria signed on 27 November 1840 required the return of Cilicia to Ottoman sovereignty. By the turn of the 20th century, further migration attracted by large-scale industrialisation grew Adana's population to over 107,000: That population was made up of 62,250 Muslims (Turks, Alawites,
Circassians, Kurds), 30,000 Armenians, 9,250
Assyrians (many of whom were Chaldean Catholics), 5,000 Greeks, 500
Arab Christians and 200 internationals.
Adana massacre of 1909 In the early 20th century the local economy thrived and the Armenian population doubled as people fled the
Hamidian massacres. When the
revolution of July 1908 brought about the end of
Abdul Hamid II's autocratic rule, the Armenian community felt empowered to imagine an autonomous Cilicia. The
CUP's post-revolution mismanagement of the
vilayets caused the pro-diversity Vali Bahri Pasha to be removed from office in late 1908. He was replaced by the weak Cevad Bey. Taking advantage of this, Bağdadizade Abdülkadir (later Paksoy), the local leader of the Cemiyet-i Muhammediye, took almost complete control of the local government and led an action plan to "punish" Armenians throughout Cilicia. Rumours of an upcoming Armenian attack, raised tension in the Turkish neighbourhoods. As soon as news of the
countercoup reached Cilicia, enraged members of the Cemiyet-i Muhammediye. After a week of silence, 850 soldiers from regiments of the Ottoman Army arrived in the city on April 25. Shots were fired at the campground and a rumour immediately spread that the Armenians had opened fire from a church tower. Without even investigating the rumour, the military commander Mustafa Remzi Pasha directed soldiers and
bashi-bazouks towards the Armenian quarters and for three days they shot people, destroyed buildings and burned down Christian neighbourhoods. The pogroms of 25–27 April were on a much greater scale than the clashes of 14–17 April, and almost all the casualties were Christian. The
Adana massacre of April 1909 resulted in the deaths of 18,839 Armenians, 1,250 Greeks, 1,272 Assyrians and 620 Muslims. Adding in the roughly 2,500
Hadjinian and other seasonal workers who disappeared, the death toll in the entire
Vilayet is estimated to have been around 25,500. Over the summer 2,000 children died of
dysentery and a few thousand adults died of injuries or from epidemics. The massacre orphaned 3,500 children and caused heavy destruction of Christian properties. Cevad Bey and Mustafa Remzi Pasha were sacked and given light sentences for abuse of power, and on 8 August 1909,
Djemal Pasha was appointed the new Vali. He quickly rebuilt relations with the surviving Armenian community and gathered financial support to found a new neighbourhood for Armenians called
Çarçabuk (now Döşeme). He also ordered the construction of
two orphanages and the restoration of destroyed buildings. The Minister of the Interior,
Talaat Pasha, wanted to end the exemption of Adana Armenians and sent his second in command, Ali Münif, to the city in mid-August to order the resumption of the deportations. Ali Münif immediately deported 250 families who were accused of insurrection. Before the remaining Armenians were deported, the Vali again arranged for them to sell their assets. As almost a third of the city's residents were selling their belongings, the city must have seemed like the site of a massive clearance sale. The deportation of 5,000 Armenian families in eight convoys started on 2 September 1915 and continued until the end of October. One thousand craftsmen, state officers and army personnel and their families were exempted from deportation. Unlike the deportees of other Vilayets, many of Adana's Armenians were sent to
Damascus and further south, thereby avoiding the
Deir ez-Zor Camps, at the request of Djemal Pasha. Pre-war life resumed with the re-opening of churches, schools, cultural centres and businesses. However, the French forces were spread thinly across Cilicia and the villages to which people returned came under attack from the Turkish
Kuva-yi Milliye. The costs and difficulties associated with the repatriation process, and growing Arab nationalism within the Syria mandate forced the French High Commissioners to meet the Turkish leader,
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, several times in late 1919 and early 1920, resulting in a halt to the deployment of extra forces to Cilicia. A truce arranged on 28 May 1920 between the French and the Kemalists, led the French forces to retreat south of the
Mersin-
Osmaniye railroad. The subsequent evacuation of thousands of Armenians from
Sis and its environs and their migration to Adana raised the number of Armenians in the city to more than 100,000. On 10 July 1920, to ease the overpopulation south of the railroad, a Franco-Armenian operation forced the local Turkish population to escape north. Roughly 40,000 Turks from Adana and around fled to the countryside and to the mountains north, an event known as the
Kaç Kaç incident, which lasted for four days and claimed hundreds of lives. The Turkish Cilician Society () and
Association for Defence of National Rights then met at a congress in
Pozantı on 5 August 1920 to re-establish Turkish rule over Cilicia. On the same day, Mihran Damadian declared the autonomy of Cilicia by coming to an agreement with the city's Christian communities. However, the French government did not recognise its autonomy, expelled the community leaders and disbanded the Armenian Legion in September. Those Armenians who were not satisfied with such guarantees rushed to Mersin port and
Dörtyol, and had evacuated their homeland of two millennia by December 1921. In 1922, up to 10,000 local Greeks moved to Greece before the policy of
Greco-Turkish population exchange took effect. Among the 172,000 Armenians in the Adana area just before the Cilicia Evacuation, 80,000 took refuge in Syria or Lebanon while up 10,000 of them migrated to Cyprus, Izmir and Istanbul. The remained 82,000 or so Armenians most likely remained in the Adana area and assimilated into Turkish/Muslim society. Armenians who settled in
Lebanon founded the
Nor Adana (English: New Adana) neighbourhood within the mostly Armenian
town of Bourj Hammoud, north-east of
Beirut. From the 1920s onwards, around 60 percent of Cilician Armenians moved to
Argentina. An informal census of 1941 revealed that 70 percent of all the
Armenian Argentines in
Buenos Aires had Adana origins.
Modern Turkey On 15 April 1923, just before the signing of the
Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish government enacted the "Law of Abandoned Properties" which confiscated the properties of Armenians and Greeks who were not present there. Adana became one of the cities with the most confiscated property, which meant that
muhacirs (immigrants) from the Balkans and
Crete, as well as migrants from
Kayseri and
Darende were resettled in the Armenian and Greek neighbourhoods, with more modest pieces of land, houses and workshops distributed to them. The large farms, factories, stores and mansions were granted to Kayseri notables (e.g. Nuh Naci Yazgan, Nuri Has, Mustafa Özgür) and to local nationalists (e.g. Sefa Özler, Ali Münif) as promised at the
Sivas Congress by Mustafa Kemal (later
Atatürk). Within a decade, the city experienced drastic demographic change, socially and economically, and turned into an almost entirely Muslim/Turkish city. On 6 February 2023, Adana was one of the major cities in Southern Turkey affected by a
7.8 magnitude earthquake. ==Geography==