Çabakçur

Bingöl was long known as Çapakçur or Chapaghjur, an Armenian name meaning “spread out water.” It lies in eastern Anatolia within the historic region of Sophene and among mountains reaching three thousand meters. The city itself stands about 1,120 meters above sea level on a plateau overlooking the Sağyer, a tributary of the Gonik Stream, which later joins the Murat River. Hot dry summers alternate with cold, snowy winters. Stepanos Asoghik mentioned Chapaghjur in the eleventh century while describing the 995 earthquake.

The name is sometimes linked with the Roman fortress-town of Citharizum. In the Middle Ages the settlement was also called Romanoupolis after Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, who brought it into the Byzantine Empire in 942. It first belonged to the theme of Mesopotamia and was later elevated into a separate theme. From the thirteenth century, the Suwaydid dynasty ruled autonomously within the wider Ottoman world.

Its mountain pastures supported livestock, while roads through Elazığ linked the town to eastern Anatolia.