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Uzunköprü (in English ''long bridge'') is a town in Edirne Province in Turkey. It is named after a historical stone bridge, claimed to be the world’s longest, on the Ergene River. It is a strategically important border town, located on the routes connecting Turkey to the Balkans and Europe. Uzunköprü is the largest and the second most populous town of Edirne Province. The town is served by Uzunköprü railway station. == History == The history of Uzunköprü goes back to the Neolithic Era (8000-5500). In the field surveys conducted in Maslıdere situated on the way going to Kırkkavak village to the south a lot of ware fragments overlaid with ornamental striped and pressed figures have been found that their congeners have never been encountered in Greece and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the information about this era is inadequate because the researches haven’t been taken further. Therefore, the history of the region from these ages to the 15th century BC is still unknown. In 15th century BC the land began to be settled by the Thracians and they had become tho sole owner of the place for a long time. However, after the 7th century BC the Thracian domination came to end by the continuous invasions over the years and got into the hands sequentially of Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Romans and Byzantines. Although the region has a very old past, a city had never been able to be built on the area where today’s Uzunkopru exists because it’d been covered with vast swamps and dense forests till the Ottomans. That’s why, the closest city to today’s settlement built in the region is Plotinopolis established by the Roman Empiror Trajan (AD 53-117) on the banks of the Maritsa River between Uzunkopru and Didymoteicho in Greece that was named after Trajan’s wife Pompeia Plotina. This ancient city is also called as Old Uzunkopru. Eventually, the region was captured from the Byzantine by the Ottoman Empire after the conguest of Edirne with the Sazlıdere War in 1363 and only afterwards it could be possible for Uzunkopru city to be established. Uzunköprü is the first Turkish city established in Rumelia by the Ottoman Empire. It was founded by Sultan Murad II in 1427 under the name of ''Ergene City''. The establishment of the city is the result of both the necessity of a settlement place acting as a junction point on the ways connecting the Ottoman capital Edirne to Gallipoli and the Balkans and secondly taking16 years to build the Long Bridge over the Ergene River. Sultan Murat II decided to build a stone bridge over the Ergene River when his army couldn’t pass the river during a campaign against Gallipoli because of the flood caused by the heavy rain at that time and collapse of the temporary wooden bridges easily. The first 360- arched stone bridge built between 1424-1427 wasn’t found satisfactory, thereby destructed and rebuilt by Murad II. It is that second bridge existing in the city today. The construction of this second bridge had lasted from 1427 to 1443 and could be finished in 16 years. Due to the long-lasting works, the meeting of the needs of the workers and the soldiers protecting them and the area became indispensably necessary and had to be built a mosque, public kitchen, caravanserai, madrasah, hammam and two water mills as facilities besides. Subsequently, families from firstly Edirne and later the Turkmen tribes who had passed onto Rumelia was brought and settled in the region to maintain and develop those facilities, thus it was laid the foundations of the city. This very first settlement called as ''Cisr-i Ergene'' (Ergene Bridge) had immediately become the trade route of the merchants carrying goods from Edirne to Gallipoli overland for shipping to Europe, Egypt and Syria, and flourished rapidly. Uzunköprü remained under Turkish sovereignty uninterruptedly till the 19th century. However, in the following years it had been occupied four times up to the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire: by Russia twice from August 20 to November 20, 1829 and January 21, 1878 to March 13, 1879, by Bulgaria from November 2, 1912 to July 19, 1913 and lastly by Greece from July 25, 1920 to November 18, 1922. In the last occupation, the Greeks renamed Uzunköprü ''Makrifere''. The city regained its present name after reconquired by the Turks in November 18, 1922. Eventually, Uzunköprü was left in Turkey in the Lausanne Treaty signed after the Turkish Independence War with the Allied Powers with which the Maritsa River became the border between Turkey and Greece. Today, the date of November 18 is celebrated as Uzunköprü’s Independence Day to commemorate the liberation from the Greek occupation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Uzunköprü」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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