Bursa

Before the Ottomans conquered Constantinople, they conquered Bursa—and that first conquest in 1326 made everything that followed possible. Osman I, the dynasty's founder, never saw the city fall; his son Orhan captured it and made it the first Ottoman capital. The Green Mosque (Yeşil Cami, 1424) and the Muradiye Complex contain the tombs of the first six Ottoman sultans, making Bursa the dynasty's spiritual root.

Bursa sits at the foot of Uludağ (Mount Olympus of Mysia), a 2,543-meter peak that provides snowmelt water, skiing tourism, and the thermal springs that attracted settlement since Roman times. The mountain creates a microclimate that makes Bursa exceptionally fertile: the city dominated the silk trade for centuries, serving as the western terminus of the Silk Road. Koza Han (Silk Market, built 1491) still operates as a silk bazaar, one of the oldest continuously functioning commercial buildings in Turkey.

Modern Bursa is Turkey's fourth-largest city and its automotive capital. The Renault-OYAK factory (1971) and Fiat-Tofaş plant anchor an automotive cluster that produces over 500,000 vehicles annually—roughly half of Turkey's total output. Bursa's textile industry also remains significant, having evolved from Ottoman silk to synthetic fabrics and ready-made garments.

The city grows explosively. Population has roughly doubled since the 1990s, driven by rural migration and industrial employment. This growth strains infrastructure—traffic, water, and housing—and pushes development onto the fertile agricultural plain that originally attracted settlement.

İskender kebab was invented here in the 1860s by İskender Efendi, and the dish's protected geographic status mirrors Bursa's broader identity: a city that monetizes its heritage while industrializing at speed.

Bursa tests whether a city can honor its founding identity—silk, sultans, thermal springs—while becoming an automotive factory town.