Menemen

Menemen lies on the lower Gediz plain north of Smyrna, where the river spreads its alluvium toward the Aegean. The valley links the coast with the many towns of the interior, while its fields surround the settlement. In the fourteenth century Menemen passed among the Turkish principalities of western Anatolia before becoming part of the Ottoman sphere.

Bayezid I took the district in the late fourteenth century, but Ottoman authority was interrupted after Timur defeated him at Ankara in 1402. Murad II restored Ottoman control in 1425. By the sixteenth century Menemen and nearby Urla were among the ports serving the region's exchange. The river plain remained a source of produce as well as a corridor between the Aegean and inland markets.