Description : Gerede is a town and a district of Bolu Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is located on the highway from Istanbul to Ankara (approximately 150 km (93.21 mi) from Ankara, where the road to the Black Sea coast branches off). It covers an area of 1,255 km2 (484.56 sq mi), and the population (2000) is 41,391 of which 25,200 live in the town of Gerede. Elevation is about 1,450 m. The mayor is Mustafa Allar (AKP). Gerede is a large area of hill country surrounded by pine-covered mountains, on a passage from central Anatolia to the Black Sea coast. The climate is notoriously cold and wet, enough to make it a centre for cross-country skiing, and traffic on the highway often has to negotiate fog, rain and ice around Gerede. Cratia, Crateia or Krateia (Ancient Greek: Κρατεία) was a town in the interior of ancient Bithynia, which also bore the name Flaviopolis, which clearly dates from the imperial period, and probably the time of Vespasian. The Antonine Itinerary places it between Claudiopolis and Ancyra of Galatia, 24 M. P. from the former. An autonomous coin with the epigraph κρη is attributed to this place; and there are coins of the imperial period, from Antoninus Pius to Gallienus. It became an episcopal see. Under the name Cratia it remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church. It may also have borne the name Agrippeia.
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