Giresun

Giresun occupies a headland on the southern shore of the Black Sea, with a castle rising above its harbour. Known to the Greeks as Kerasous, the town linked sea traffic with the difficult road inland to Karahisar. Hazelnuts, grain and metals from the hinterland passed through its port, while the fortified headland offered shelter on a coast backed closely by mountains.

In the fourteenth century Giresun stood between the Empire of Trebizond and the expanding Türkmen principalities. Genoese raiders attacked and burned the town in 1348. In 1397 Süleyman Bey of the Hacıemiroğulları captured the city and its castle, extending his principality eastward along the coast. The conquest brought a new ruling power to a port whose population and commerce reflected its earlier connections with Trebizond and the wider Black Sea.

Under Ottoman rule Giresun remained a fortified port and market. In the late sixteenth century disorders involving the garrison led many households to leave the district. Contemporary records describe trouble among the Janissaries stationed there in 1586 and 1587, followed by more serious disorder in 1594, when some two hundred households abandoned their homes in the area. Despite such upheavals, the castle and the harbour continued to anchor the town, while the road over the mountains carried the products of the interior to the sea.