11 Facts About Kilis

Kilis is a city in south-central Turkey, near the border with Syria, and the administrative centre of Kilis Province.

Kilis was part of the Aleppo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire until the First World War, after which it passed to the Republic of Turkey.

In 1850, Francis Rawdon Chesney mentioned that Kilis was chiefly inhabited by Turkomans, who were agriculturists and carriers, and Armenians, Turks, and Kurds, totaling to 12 thousand people.

In 1869, American missionaries noted that the prevalent language in Kilis was Turkish unlike Aleppo, while Arabic was mostly spoken by the Greeks of the town, who understood Turkish but didn't prefer the language.

In Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition from 1911, Kilis was included as a town of 20 thousand inhabitants, mainly composed of Circassians, Turkomans, and Arabs.

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In 1914, the kaza of Kilis consisted of 78,905 Muslims, 434 Greeks, 3,934 Armenians, 775 Jews, 376 Armenian Catholics, and 390 Protestants.

Kilis is surrounded by three important cities, Gaziantep, Antakya, and Aleppo, and located at the crossroads of Anatolia and Syria.

Indeed, until 1996 Kilis was a district of Gaziantep Province, being made into a province by Tansu Ciller following an open vote-winning gambit in the 1995 general election.

The houses of Kilis are shaped depending on the effects of the climate and cultural approaches and are not easily detected from outside as they are surrounded with high walls.

Local kebab known as Kilis Tava is renowned, and the breads, baklava, kunefe and stuffed vegetables.

Kilis has a hot summer Mediterranean climate, with very hot, dry and long summers and cool and rainy winters, with occasional snowfall.