Şanlıurfa Province

The Urfa region is characterized by a semi-arid Mediterranean climate.[7]^: 192 Rainfall mostly comes in winter, when the temperature is mildest; summers are very hot and dry.[7]^: 192 Annual mean precipitation is 458.1 mm.[7]^: 192 The annual mean temperature is 18.5 °C.[7]^: 192 The coldest month is January, which has an average temperature of 2.7 °C, while the hottest month is July, with an average temperature of 39 °C.[7]^: 192 The dry season typically begins around April, peaks in intensity around July, and ends around October.[7]^: 201 Wind typically blows from the northwest, with west-northwest winds being the strongest.[7]^: 195

The area around Urfa and Viranşehir, and continuing towards Mardin further east, is the driest part of a "desert-like steppe" region in southeastern Anatolia.[7]^: 190 This area is characterized by vast plains as well as "low and broad hills [that] come [one] after another".[7]^: 190 As one approaches the Syrian border in the south, the climate gets drier due to less rainfall and it becomes more desert-like.[7]^: 190 In some areas, however, water from karstic sources makes things greener.[7]^: 190

The plant life of this southeastern steppe region is less diverse than the steppes of central and eastern Anatolia because the dry season is longer here.[7]^: 190 Perennial xerophytes like Astragalus, Verbascum, Phlomis, Centaurea, and Cirsium predominate.[7]^: 190 In some sheltered valleys, though, pockets of Mediterranean flora still exist – remnants of what was once a more widespread distribution prior to a climactic shift in the region sometime in the past.[7]^: 190

Geological map of the Urfa-Harran plain and surroundings (in German)

Most of Şanlıurfa province consists of Cenozoic formations.[7]^: 191 Calcareous formations are predominant on the Fatik plateau, west of the Urfa-Harran plain, and in the Tektek Mountains to the east of the plain.[7]^: 191–2 Among these are vast Eocene deposits north and west of Urfa, as well as younger Oligocene-Miocene deposits on the Tektek and lower Fatik plateaus.[7]^: 191–2 There are also basalt deposits, dating from the Pliocene-Quaternary periods, just north of the city of Urfa itself.[7]^: 191–2 These are associated with the Karacadağ Formation.[7]^: 192 These basalt deposits are generally covered by just 5 to 10 cm of soil deposits; in some places, though, there is thick enough topsoil for agriculture.[7]^: 192 On the Harran plain, more recent alluvial deposits from the Quaternary period predominate.[7]^: 191, 3

Şanlıurfa province is a major producer of cotton, wheat, and barley.[9]^: 47 Cotton production in particular increased dramatically after the GAP was initiated in 1995.[9]^: 47 The influx of irrigation availability meant that many farmers could switch from dry to irrigated agriculture, and cotton's high market value enticed a majority of farmers to start planting it.[9]^: 58 The province's annual cotton yield rose from 277,000 tons in 1995 to 708,602 tons in 2004.[9]^: 47 By 2021, the province produces 42% of all cotton in Turkey.[10] As of 2008, the province also produced 11% of all dry legumes, 6.4% of barley, and 4% of wheat in the country.[9]^: 48 Other crops include red lentil, pistachio, grape, sesame, and various vegetables.[9]^: 47 In terms of animal husbandry, sheep and goats are the most important.[9]^: 48 As of 2015, about 32% of the province's workforce is employed in agriculture.[11]^: 258 However, the employment share of agriculture has been declining.[9]^: 49 Another problem is that excessive irrigation has caused increased soil salinity.[9]^: 49

Pistachio clusters growing on a tree in Şanlıurfa province. The province is one of Turkey's leading pistachio producers.

Şanlıurfa province is among the leading producers of pistachios in Turkey.[12] As of 2021, the province has 29.7 million pistachio trees and produced 38,576 tons of pistachios — about a third of the national total of 119,000 tons.[12] However, most of the processing for the pistachios is done in Gaziantep instead.[12]

The province is also a major producer of several varieties of peppers.[13] As of 2021, Şanlıurfa province produced 77,663 tons of capia peppers; 6,180 tons of sivri peppers; and 1,296 tons of bell peppers.[13]

Agriculture in Şanlıurfa province is dominated by large-scale landowners.[11]^: 259–60 Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, an influx of Syrian refugees willing to work for cheap have changed the agricultural labor market here.[11]^: 259–60 Local seasonal farm workers, who demand higher wages, are unable to find work in the province and are increasingly temporarily migrating to other provinces for seasonal farm work.[11]^: 258–61

Urfa cheese (Urfa peyniri) bears similarity to other cheeses in the region, such as Diyarbakır's örgü, Kahramanmaraş's Maraş-sıkma, or Gaziantep's Antep-sıkma.[14]^: 90 It is mostly made from sheep and goat milk.[14]^: 90 Most production is done in villages using traditional techniques and low-tech equipment and lacking hygienic standards or pasteurized milk; however, industrial-scale production has begun in recent decades.[14]^: 91, 3 There is no single standardized method of production for Urfa cheese, so its qualities can vary.[14]^: 91 It is aged for anywhere between 3 and 7 months.[14]^: 91

Another regional specialty is Urfa butter (Urfa yaği), a type of clarified butter made from sheep's milk.[15]^: 1–2 It is made in Urfa itself as well as in other towns in the province like Siverek, Viranşehir, Ceylanpınar, and Harran.[15]^: 1–2

Industry has been increasing in employment share in Şanlıurfa province, reached 16% in 2006.[9]^: 49 The biggest industries include food processing (especially baked goods and dairy products) and textiles (especially cotton fabrics), which as of 2002 together employ 54% of industrial workers in the province.[9]^: 52 Other important industries (based on location quotient) include treatment and coating of metals (especially copper) and the manufacturing of pumps, compressors, and other agricultural equipment.[9]^: 53

The largest part of the service sector in Şanlıurfa province, both in GDP and employment, is wholesale and retail trade.[9]^: 56 Many wholesalers and retailers in the province are closely linked to the agricultural sector - for example, through wholesale of seeds for farmers, wholesale of dairy products, retail sale of meat products, or retail sale of textiles.[9]^: 56 Another important activity in this sector is freight transport by road, which has a high location quotient for the province because it lies on the main road connection between the port of Mersin and the Habur border crossing into Iraq.[9]^: 56

The famous çiğ köfte belongs to the culinary traditions of the city and was unknown to the rural population until 1980s.[17] Tırşik is a traditional dish of the rural population within the province.[17]

"Çan Çekiç Oyunu" is a traditional dice game of Urfa played with eight dice for money.[18]^: 873 "Dörtlü Oyunu" is a traditional dance of Urfa involving four people who each hold a red handkerchief in the right hand and a white one in the left hand.[18]^: 873 It is set to music played on the zurna and davul (types of horn and drum, respectively).[18]^: 873

"Derrebu Derinebu" is a tag-like playground game from Urfa that is a variant of the game "Darabil" from Gaziantep.[19]^: 292 In Derrebu Derinebu, players form two teams that face each other.[19]^: 292 A player from one team attempts to cross over to the other team, tag any number of players, and return, all while singing a rhyme without pausing for breath.[19]^: 292 The game locally known as "Arası Kesme" (called "Ara Kesme", "Esir Almaca", or other names in other parts of Turkey) is a capture-style game where one team tries to retrieve players from a designated area while the other team tries to stop them.[19]^: 296 A local variety of hide-and-seek (Saklambaç) is known as "Ebe Saklama".[19]^: 303 "Alkuç Balkuç" is an object-hiding game from Urfa where players stand in a circle and secretly pass an object from hand to hand.[19]^: 303 "Çukur Atma" is a marbles-type game of Urfa, except played with plum or apricot seeds instead of actual marbles.[19]^: 290 Another game particular to Urfa is "İğne Miğne Kiraz" and the finger-and-hand-based games "Beş Parmağı Yüz veya Bin Yapmak" and "Açıl Kilidim Açıl".[19]^: 316

A rich body of folk literature from Urfa is the mâni — a type of sung, single-stanza folk poetry consisting of seven lines with an A-A-B-A rhyme scheme.[20]^: 151 The hoyrat is a local subgenre of the mâni where the first line is missing a syllable.[20]^: 151 The hoyrat is a cultural tradition also present at Kirkuk in Iraq.[20]^: 151

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  Ridwaniya Mosque
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  Balıklı Göl (Fish Pond) and people
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  Mevlid-i Halil (Birth of Abraham) Mosque
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  Salahaddin Mosque
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  Urfa's central market
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  Traditional Narrow Streets
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  Urfa's retailers
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  Harran District