Bandirma

Bandırma stands on a sheltered bay on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara. Its older name, Panormos, meant a safe harbour, and the anchorage served the ancient city of Cyzicus. Across the water lay the routes to the northern Marmara coast and Constantinople; inland, the country opened toward the towns and fields of western Anatolia.

The town passed from the Karası principality into Ottoman hands in the fourteenth century. When the traveller Evliya Çelebi visited in 1659, he described mosques, numerous inns and artisans, together with a substantial commercial landing place. Tiled roofs and decorated buildings impressed him. His account portrays a working harbour town whose trade and crafts had grown around the sheltered water that gave it its older name.