Where to Visit in Usak
Usak is a city in the interior part of the Aegean Region of Turkey. The city has a population of 500,000 (2016 census) and is the capital of Usak Province.
Usak city is situated at a distance of 210 km (130 mi) from İzmir, the region’s principal metropolitan center and port city. Benefiting from its location at the crossroads of the Central Anatolian plateau and the coastal Aegean Region, and from a climate and agricultural production incorporating elements of both of these zones, Usak has also traditionally had a strong industrial base. Uşak was the first city in Turkey to have an urban electricity network, and the first city where a collective labor relations agreement was signed, during the Ottoman era, between leather industry employees and workers. It was here that the first factory of Republican Turkey, a sugar refinery, was set up through a private sector initiative among local businessmen. The tradition of industriousness continues today around two industrial zones. Uşak has a Mediterranean, with cool, wet, regularly snowy winters and hot, dry summers.
The first known organized states to have ruled over the region of present-day Uşak were the Phrygians in the eastern portion and the Lydians in the west during the seventh century BC. The Karun Treasure, discovered by clandestine treasure hunters in Uşak in 1965, and whose smuggling outside Turkey and subsequent retrieval decades later from New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art made international headlines, gives an indication of the high degree of civilization attained by these Anatolian states. The region of Lydia was later taken over by the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC and by Alexander the Great and his successors as of the 4th century. Thereafter, Uşak was ruled successively by the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Seljuks, the Germiyanids and finally the Ottoman Empire (as of 1429).
Later, following Turkish conquest and domination over the area, the city became known by its Turkish name of Uşak; which means “servant.” From 1867 until 1922, Uşak was part of Hüdavendigâr vilayet.
Uşak was occupied by the Greek Army between 28 August 1920 and 1 September 1922. During the Greek retreat, Greek general Nikolaos Trikoupis was captured near Uşak at the village of Göğem, today buried under a dam reservoir.
Usak was a district center within Kütahya Province until 1953, when Uşak Province was constituted and Uşak became its provincial capital.
Usak Museums
