Gaziantep is a province in south-central Turkey, and is also the name of the province's capital and largest city (population 853,513 as of 2000). It's name during the Byzantine rule was Germanicea.
An important trading center since ancient times, the province is also one of Turkey's major manufacturing zones, and its agriculture is dominated by the growing of pistachio nuts.
Originally known as Antep, the title gazi (meaning veteran in Turkish) was added to the province's and the provincial capital's name in 1921, due to its population's extraordinary courage during Turkish War of Independence.
Gaziantep, previously Aintab ("good spring") and commonly referred to as Antep, is the capital of Gaziantep Province in southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, forty-five kilometers from the Syrian border.
During the First Crusades (1096–1099) Antep was ruled by Armenian Philaretus and fell to the Byzantines in 1150 only to be captured by the Seljuks of Konya in 1151.
Antep was occupied by the English in 1919 and by the French from 1920 to 1921.
The waters of the Firat (Euphrates) River passes through tunnels which are 26.4 kms in length and 7.62 ms in diam, and distributed to the vast crop lands of the southeastern Anatolian plains from central and branch channels, bringing a prosperity to the region.
In the 12th century BC, Kahraman Maras (78 km north of GaziAntep) was the capital of the Hittite state of Gurgum.
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