Bolu Province (Turkish:Bolu ili) is aprovince in north-westernTurkey, between the capital,Ankara, and the largest city in the country,Istanbul. Its area is 8,313 square kilometres (3,210 sq mi),[2] and its population is 320,824 (2022).[1] The capital city of the province isBolu.
There is also another area consisting of a lake and its surroundings that is under protection by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as a 'nature park' that is called Gölcük. There is a structure on the shore of the lake named the State Guesthouse of the Ministry of Forestry. Near the nature park is an artificial lake; the lake is 13 kilometres (8 mi) to the south of the city of Bolu.
It is not known when Bolu was first established. Some archaeological findings that date back about 100,000[citation needed] years suggest the region was inhabited then.
The area now in Bolu Province was in easternBithynia and southwesternPaphlagonia. The town of Bithynium, from which the area takes its name, is the modernBolu. The area was called Bithynia during theHellenistic period. TheRomans named it Claudiopolis, and it was called Bolu by the Turks.[3] By approximately 375 BCE, Bithynia had gained its independence fromPersia underArtaxerxes II, and King Bas subsequently defeatedAlexander's attempt to take it.[4] The Bithynian region, with parts of Paphlagonia remained its own kingdom until 88 BCE, when it briefly came underMithridates VI and theKingdom of Pontus. With Roman's help, the last Bithynian king,Nicomedes IV, regained his throne, but on his death bequeathed the kingdom to Rome. This led to theThird Mithridatic War and the fall of Pontus, after which the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as a single province, merging Paphlagonia with Bithynia. Under the fallingByzantine Empire, the Bolu area was divided from western Bithynia at theSakarya River, with western Bithynia keeping the name. The Sakarya River remains the southern and western boundary of the province.[5]
After the victory ofMalazgirt in 1071, the Turkmens spread to the west and settled in Bolu 3 years later. The Turkmens who settled inBolu in 1074 easily integrated with theBulgar,Pecheneg,Uz andCuman Turks that theByzantine Empire's had brought from theBalkans long before and later. Bolu and its villages were completely Turkified and took the names of theTurkic tribes. TheTurks who came from the Balkans becameChristians, but they did not forget theTurkic language, customs and traditions. They becameMuslims in a short time.[6]
The Byzantine Empire briefly lost the Bolu area to theSeljuk Turks after the 1071Battle of Manzikert but recovered it underAlexios I Komnenos. After the end of theKomnenos dynasty, the Turks gradually reclaimed the Bolu area back. In approximately 1240, the Seljuk Turks took the eastern part of the Bolu area (i.e., the Paphlagonian part) from the Byzantine Empire and incorporated it into theSultanate of Rum. Due to their assistance in taking it andSinop, theChobanids were given that territory and adjacent areas to the north and east to govern. That eastern area fell to theIsfendiyarids in 1292 and was controlled by them until 1461, after which it was incorporated into the rest of theOttoman Empire byMehmed II.
By 1265, the western part of the Bolu area was again acquired by the Seljuk Turks, but it fell toOrhan and the Ottoman Empire in the early to mid-1300s. The two areas were reunited in 1461, under Mehmed II. In the1864 Ottoman Empire administrative reorganization, Bolu was made into an independentsanjak,[7] although it was geographically part of theKastamonu Vilayet.
