Van

Van is a mostly Kurdish-populated city in eastern Turkey’s Van Province, located on the eastern shore of Lake Van. The city has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BC, initially as Tushpa, the capital of the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BC to the 6th century BC, and later as the center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan.

A ruined stone building near the foot of the rocky spur bears cuneiform inscriptions dating from the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, when Van was the chief centre of the Urartu kingdom. After the fall of Nineveh (612 BCE), it was occupied in succession by the Medes, Achaemenian Persians, and the kings of Pontus. Rock inscriptions on the citadel hill include one in Old Persian carved on the orders of the Achaemenian king Xerxes I (early 5th century BCE). Van was included in the kingdom established by King Tigranes I in the 1st century BCE. The Romans and the Sasanids of Persia fought over it for a time, it became a tributary state to the Arabs in the 7th century, and it prospered under the Armenian Bagratid dynasty in the 8th century. The region fell to the Seljuq Turks after their victory over Byzantium (1071) and was later annexed to the Ottoman Empire in 1543. Russian forces occupied the city from 1915 to 1917, during World War I.

The mound of Toprakkale, 3 miles (5 km) north of the modern city, is the site of an excavated ancient Urartian city dating from the 8th century BCE. Van’s local museum contains numerous specimens of Urartian inscriptions and pottery found in the vicinity.