Name
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It is not known when the city was founded, nor under what name, but local tradition holds that the earliest settlers were Thracian tribes who established a fortified hilltop village surrounded by vineyards and shrines to the sun god Sabazios. The Byzantine Greeks called it Saranta Ekklisies (Greek: Σαράντα Εκκλησιές, meaning "forty churches"). According to folklore, a ring of wooden chapels once stood on the ridge above the settlement, which may have inspired the name. In modern Greek it is known by the same name. In the 14th century this was translated to Turkish and called Kırk Kilise (40 churches). Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, sanjaks became cities and on December 20, 1924, Kırk Kilise's name was changed to Kırklareli, meaning The Place of the Forties. The denomination Kırklareli was already used years before 1924, for example in the contemporary literature concerning the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The Bulgarian name of the town is Lòzengrad (Лозенград) which means Vineyard Town. (see also its other names)
History
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Siege of Lozengrad/Kırk Kilise (now Kırklareli), in the Balkan Wars.
Kırklareli MuseumOngoing archeological excavations in the city support the claim that the area was the location of one of the first organized settlements on the European continent, with artifacts from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.
Kırklareli Old Municipality Building.jpg
Old Stock Exchange Building, Kırklareli.
Old Turkish Hearth Building, Kırklareli.
Kırklareli Health History House
Kırklareli Greek Girls' School
Lozengrad Bulgarian Metropoly postcard.
The settlement and its surrounding areas were conquered by the Persians in 513–512 BC, during the reign of King Darius I.
In 914 during the Bulgarian invasion in Adrianople led by Simeon I, the settlement was captured by the Bulgarians and was under Bulgarian rule until 1003 when it was lost to the Byzantines.
The Ottoman Turks took the city and its region from the Byzantines in 1363, during the reign of Sultan Murad I.
The city was damaged during the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). [citation needed]
According to the 1878 record "Ethnography of the Wilayahs Adrianopol, Monastir and Thessaloniki" Kırk Kilise was inhabited by 6,700 Bulgarians, 2,850 Greeks, and 2,700 belonging to other ethnic groups (Turks, Gajals, Dağlılar, Pomaks, Circassians).
In 1906, the Diocese of Saranda Ekklisies was detached from the Metropolis of Adrianople and was elevated to the status of Metropolis.
According to the official Ottoman census of 1881-1882, the Sanjak of Kirk Klise had a total population of 125,329 people, including 36,227 Muslims (28.9%), 53,663 Greek Orthodox Christians (42.8%), 33,999 Bulgarian Orthodox Christians (27.1%) and 1,440 others, mostly Jews. By the 1906-1907 Ottoman census, the total population had grown to 181,204, of which 78,338 were Muslims (43.2%), 70,501 Greek Orthodox Christians (38.9%), 29,736 Bulgarian Orthodox Christians (16.4%) and 2,629 others following the settlement of Muslims from the Ottoman Empire's former holdings on the Balkans and the mass exodus of Bulgarians in the wake of the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising.
During the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) Kırk Kilise was occupied by Bulgaria, and then by Greece in the aftermath of World War I (1914–1918) prompting the exodus of its Bulgarian population (there were a large number of journalists who reported on the actions at Kırk Kilise). Following the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) the city was retaken by the Turks on November 10, 1922. According to the 1923 population exchange agreement between Greece and Turkey, the Greeks of the city were exchanged for the Muslims (Turks, Pomaks, Karadjaovalides and Albanians) living in Greece.
Most of the inhabitants of the city are Turks who formerly lived in Thessaloniki until the First Balkan War of 1912. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) which defines Turkey's western border in Thrace also resulted in a Kırklareli Province within Turkey.
The Megleno-Romanians of Kırklareli[edit]
Governor's Office in Kırklareli, Turkey
In 1923, most of the 3,700 inhabitants of Notia, the only Muslim village of the Megleno-Romanians in northern Greece, settled in the Edirne area (mainly in Kırklareli) and became known as Karadjovalides after the Turkish name of Moglena.
The number of these Megleno-Romanian families settled in Kırklareli were more than 110, while those settled in small villages were around 400: in total, nearly 2,000 Megleno-Romanians. Currently, they number only 500, concentrated in Kırklareli and culturally assimilated into the Turks. Most of them speak the Turkish language, but are still bilingual at home.
