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The Ottoman Empire took over when the Eastern Roman empire fell. The Ottomans trace their roots back to this area around Bursa in Western Turkey.
The UNESCO World Heritage List includes more than a thousand properties with outstanding universal value. They are all part of the world’s cultural and natural heritage.
Official facts
- Full name of site: Bursa and Cumalikizik: the Birth of the Ottoman Empire
- Country: Turkey
- Date of Inscription: 2014
- Category: Cultural site
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre’s short description of site no. 1452:
The Birth of the Ottoman Empire is a serial nomination of eight component sites in the City of Bursa and the nearby village of Cumalikizik, in the southern Marmara Region. The site illustrates the creation of an urban and rural system establishing the Ottoman Empire in the early 14th century. The property illustrates key functions of the social and economic organization of the new capital which evolved around a new civic centre. These include commercial districts of khans, kulliyes (religious institutions) integrating mosques, religious schools, public baths and a kitchen for the poor as well as the tomb of Orhan Ghazi, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. One component outside the historic centre of Bursa is the village of Cumalikizik, the only rural village of this system to show the provision of hinterland support for the capital.
My visit
I arrived in Bursa for a night on my way from Istanbul to Efes, back in 1986. I found Bursa to be a pleasant town, full of history and with some peculiar places of interest as well.
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