Elazığ
central district and city in Elazığ Province, Turkey
Elazığ (Turkish pronunciation: [eˈlazɯː]) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, and the administrative centre of Elazığ Province and Elazığ District. Founded in and around the former city of Harput, it is located in the uppermost Euphrates valley. The plain on which the city extends has an altitude of 1,067 metres (3,501 ft). Elazığ resembles an inland peninsula surrounded by the natural Lake Hazar and reservoirs of Keban Dam, Karakaya Dam, Kıralkızı and Özlüce. Its population is 387,072 (2022).
Name
Mezre
Elazığ was once a suburb of the ancient fortress town of Harput called Mezre. Heinrich Hübschmann believed Mezre to be the settlement of Mazara (Μαζάρα) mentioned by Ptolemy, while Nicholas Adontz derived the name from an Arabic word meaning arable land or hamlet (borrowed into Turkish as mezra 'hamlet'). The toponym Mezre originated as a shortening of Ağavat Mezrası ('hamlet of the aghas/landlords') or Mezra-ı Çötelizade ('Çötelizade [a family name] hamlet'). This may be explained by the fact that some notables from Harput had been exiled from the city and settled in nearby villages in the late 18th century.
Harput
Some Armenians from Harput (Armenian: Խարբերդ, romanized: Kharberd) are said to have settled on the site in 1617, so Elazığ was sometimes called Nor Kharberd (lit.
The public source identifies “Elazığ” as central district and city in Elazığ Province, Turkey. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Elazığ, central and district.
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Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q174060. VIAF identifies the subject as 135680417. The Library of Congress control number is n85022153. Authority coordinates are 38.667, 39.217. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022 and 1617.
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This entry incorporates text from “Elazığ” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.