Urfa
city in Turkey
Urfa, officially called Şanlıurfa (Turkish pronunciation: [ʃanˈɫɯuɾfa] lit. 'Urfa the Glorious'), is a city in southeastern Turkey and the capital of Şanlıurfa Province. Urfa is situated on a plain about 80 km (50 mi) east of the Euphrates. Its climate features extremely hot, dry summers and cool, moist winters.
About 12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city is the famous Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe, the world's oldest known temple, which was founded in the 10th millennium BC. The area was part of a network of the first human settlements where the agricultural revolution took place. Because of its association with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic history, and a legend recounting that it was the hometown of Abraham, Urfa is nicknamed the City of Prophets.
Religion is important in Urfa. The city "has become a center of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs" and "is considered one of the most devoutly religious cities in Turkey".
The city is located 30 miles from the Atatürk Dam, at the heart of the Southeast Anatolia Project, which draws thousands of job-seeking villagers to the city every year.
Name
The earliest name of the city was Admaʾ (also written Adme, Admi, Admum; Imperial Aramaic: אדמא), recorded in Assyrian cuneiform in the Old Assyrian period. It is recorded in Syriac as ܐܕܡܐ Adme.
“Urfa” enters the record as city in Turkey. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Urfa, city and Turkey can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Urfa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Urfa, city and Turkey provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q133118. VIAF identifies the subject as 133797710. The Library of Congress control number is n88118501. Authority coordinates are 37.158, 38.792. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Urfa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Urfa primary sources, Urfa archive and Urfa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Urfa” 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.