Edirne, << eh DIHR neh >>, formerly Adrianople << `AY` drih uh NOH puhl >> (pop. 148,474), is an ancient Turkish city. It was the European capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1361 until the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453. Edirne is in northwestern Turkey, near the Bulgarian border where the Maritsa, Arda, and Tunca rivers meet. Edirne was once a great trading center. Today it is still an important regional trading city in Turkey. The mosque of Selim II, built in the 1500’s, stands in Edirne. It is considered the masterpiece of the great Ottoman architect known as Mimar Sinan (in Turkish, mimar means the architect).
The Roman emperor Hadrian founded the city on the ruins of an ancient Thracian city and named it Hadrianopolis. Several major battles took place near the city, among them the defeat of Roman troops by Visigoths in A.D. 378. The Ottomans took over the city in 1360. Russian troops captured it in 1829 and 1878. Bulgarians briefly occupied the city in 1913 during the Balkan Wars. Edirne became a part of the new Republic of Turkey in 1923, the year after the Ottoman Empire was abolished.
