Edremit Gulf

The Gulf of Edremit opens toward the Aegean opposite Lesbos, with the Biga peninsula along its northern shore. Ancient Assos stood above a valuable harbor there, beneath a temple of Athena on the crag. The philosopher Aristotle lived at Assos in the fourth century BC. In the early 14th century, people fleeing Turkish raids in western Anatolia crowded into the town; when the attacks reached the region, inhabitants and refugees fled across the sea to Lesbos.