Description : Edirne, historically known as Adrianople (Latin: Hadrianopolis; founded by the Roman emperor Hadrian on the site of a previous Thracian settlement named Uskudama), is a city in the northwestern Turkish province of Edirne in the region of East Thrace, close to Turkey's borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the third capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1369 to 1453, before Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) became the empire's fourth and final capital between 1453 and 1922. The city's estimated population in 2019 was 185,408. The area around Edirne has been the site of numerous major battles and sieges, from the days of the Roman Empire. The vagaries of the border region between Asia and Europe gives rise to Edirne's historic claim to be the most frequently contested spot on the globe. Antiquity The city was refounded eponymously by the Roman Emperor Hadrian on the site of a previous Thracian settlement known as Uskadama, Uskudama, Uskodama or Uscudama. Hadrian developed it, adorned it with monuments, changed its name to Hadrianopolis (which would be corrupted into Adrianopolis, Anglicised as Adrianople). Licinius was defeated there by Constantine I in 323, and Emperor Valens was killed by the Goths in 378 during the Battle of Adrianople (378). In 813, the city was temporarily seized by Khan Krum of Bulgaria who moved its inhabitants to the Bulgarian lands north of the Danube. During the existence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Crusaders were decisively defeated by the Bulgarian Emperor Kaloyan in the Battle of Adrianople (1205). In 1206 Adrianople and its territory was given to the Byzantine aristocrat Theodore Branas as a hereditary fief by the Latin regime. Theodore Komnenos, Despot of Epirus, took possession of it in 1227, but three years later was defeated at Klokotnitsa by Emperor Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria. In 1362, the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad I invaded Thrace. Murad captured Adrianople, probably in 1369 (the date is disputed). The city became "Edirne" in Turkish, reflecting the Turkish pronunciation. Murad moved the Ottoman capital to Adrianople. Mehmed the Conqueror (Sultan Mehmed II) was born in Adrianople, where he fell under the influence of some Hurufis dismissed by Taş Köprü Zade in the Şakaiki Numaniye as "Certain accursed ones of no significance", who were burnt as heretics by a certain Mahmud Pasha. The city remained the Ottoman capital for 84 years until 1453, when Mehmed II took Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and moved the capital there. Edirne is famed for its many mosques, domes, minarets, and palaces from the Ottoman period.
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