Urla

Urla lies on a peninsula west of Smyrna, among bays and fertile land facing the Aegean. Nearby ancient Klazomenai was an Ionian city whose painted amphorae carried olive oil and wine in overseas trade. The sheltered coast and islands made the district a place of seafaring settlement long before the Ottoman town developed inland.

By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Urla had become a market centre linked to its port and to the road toward Çeşme. Its maritime trade connected the surrounding countryside with the islands and other ports, although local accounts record a decline in this traffic toward the end of the sixteenth century. The ancient remains of Klazomenai and the later town preserve different chapters of the peninsula's commercial history.