Bitlis

Also known as Bitlis City

OverviewAI-generated

Bitlis is a city and municipality in Turkey, serving as the capital of Bitlis Province. It is situated in the Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi region at an elevation of approximately 1,500 meters above sea level. The city has a population of 52,721, with an urban population of 53,023 and a rural population of 56,101. Its official postal code is 13000, and it operates in the UTC+03:00 time zone.

Historically, Bitlis has been associated with the Principality of Bitlis and the Bitlis vilayet. The city is described in various sources, including the Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, The Nuttall Encyclopædia, and Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition. Its native label is بدلیس.

Synthesized by Vinony from 45 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Openweathermap, OpenStreetMap, GeoNames, Open Meteo, Vinony graph, Geo. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

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7-day forecast

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Place details

Locality: Bitlis Merkez
Region: Bitlis
Country: Türkiye
Population: 53,023
Timezone: Europe/Istanbul

via OpenStreetMap · GeoNames

Air quality

53US AQIModerate

PM2.5: 9.5 µg/m³
PM10: 14.2 µg/m³

As of 2026-08-11 03:00 · Open-Meteo

Key facts

Turkey place.province: Bitlis
Turkey place.district: Bitlis
Turkey place.type: municipality
Turkey place.name: Bitlis
Turkey place.other_name: Baghesh • Բաղեշ
Turkey place.image_skyline: Bitlis Montage.jpg
Turkey place.image_caption: From top left: Ihasiye Serafhan Medrese • Bitlis Castle Tourist office • Şerefiye Mosque • Sokak Han Bitlis skyline • Pasha Hammam
Turkey place.leader_party: AK Party
Turkey place.leader_name: Nesrullah Tanğlay
Turkey place.elevation_m: 1545
Turkey place.population_total: 53023
Turkey place.population_as_of: 2021
Turkey place.postal_code: 13000

via Wikipedia infobox

~16 min read

Encyclopedic overview

16 sections

Contents

History
Ancient Bitlis
Medieval Bitlis
Emirate
Modern
Tourism
Description
Demographics
Gallery
Climate
Economy
Notable individuals
Mayors of Bitlis
Notes
Further reading
External links

Bitlis ( or ; ; ) is a city in southeastern Turkey. It is the seat of Bitlis District and Bitlis Province. Its population is 53,023 (2021). The city is located at an elevation of 1,545 metres, 15 km from Lake Van, in the steep-sided valley of the Bitlis River, a tributary of the Tigris. The local economy is mainly based on agricultural products which include fruits, grain and tobacco. Industry is fairly limited, and deals mainly with leatherworking, manufacture of tobacco products as well as weaving and dyeing of coarse cloth. Bitlis is connected to other urban centres by road, including Tatvan on Lake Van, 25 km to the northeast, and the cities of Muş (Mush), 100 km northwest, and Diyarbakır, 200 km to the west. The climate of Bitlis can be harsh, with long winters and heavy snowfalls. Since the local elections of March 2019, the Mayor of Bitlis is Nesrullah Tanğlay. Bitlis has been identified in the scholarly literature as a historically Kurdish city. Martin van Bruinessen (2013), examining Kurdish urbanisation, noted the predominantly Kurdish character of Bitlis and its population. Demographic studies of Turkey's Kurdish-majority provinces have consistently identified Bitlis among the provinces with the highest concentrations of Kurdish speakers.

== History ==

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bitlis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.