Smyrna, the most important seaport of Asia Minor, stands at the head of the Gulf of Smyrna, which penetrates 46 miles inland from the Ægean Sea, and in a little mountain-girdled valley on the west coast of Asia Minor. The city climbs up the slopes and nestles at the foot of a steep hill (at the south-east corner of the Gulf), which is crowned by the ruins of the ancient Greek Acropolis. Viewed from the waters of the Gulf it presents a very fine appearance; but the interior, especially in the higher parts where the Turks dwell, consists chiefly of narrow and dark streets with mean houses. The Frankish quarter, to which the Europeans are confined, and which faces the quays (2 miles long) and harbour, is in most respects decidedly better than the native districts. Gas is used for lighting the streets, and the electric light in private establishments. The drainage is bad; the climate uncertain, but intensely hot in summer; and earthquakes are by no means unknown, those of 178 A.D., 1688, 1768, and 1880 having been particularly severe. Traces of the ancient walls, the stadium, theatre, and some temples can still be discerned. There are a great number of modern mosques, churches, baths, and bazaars, but no buildings with any architectural pretensions. The city is the seat of archbishops of the Roman Catholic, Greek, and Armenian Churches, and of the Turkish governor-general of the province (vilayet) of Aidin. Carpets are manufactured, as well as pottery, cottons, and woollens. The principal inland communications from Smyrna are the railway up the Mendere valley to Denizli, having, with branches, a length of 325 miles, and the Smyrna-Ala-shehir railway, with branches, 284 miles; and in connection with these iron-foundries and machine-shops have been established at Smyrna. But it is as a commercial seaport that the place is specially celebrated. Seven hundred years before Christ it was one of the principal trading-centres for Asia Minor (Anatolia); and at the present day it has unquestionably the lion's share of the Asia Minor trade with Europe. The harbour is large, safe, and easily accessible, but is in imminent danger of siltng up like that of Salonica. The exports from Smyrna average about £4,000,000 in annual value, and the imports close upon £3,000,000. The principal commodities amongst the exports are raisins (£1,100,000), valonia (£700,000), figs (£343,000), and opium (£196,000), to which must be added barley, carpets, sponges, liquorice, wool, olive-oil, tobacco, emery, sesame-seed, lides, fruits, antimony, beans, cotton-seed, walnut-wood, poppy-seed, bones, and a multitude of other articles. The imports of greatest value are textiles (£713,000), timber (£275,000), and iron and hardware (£102,000), besides groceries, railway plant, leather, butter, glass, petroleum, coal, cheese, matches, paper, &c. Britain takes of these exports to the value of £2,000,000 annually, and sends from £678,000 (1885) to £1,255,000 (1889) of the imports. The harbour is entered annually by some 1620 vessels of 1,486,000 tons burden. Pop. estimated (1890) at 210,000, of whom 107,000 are Greeks (just the population of Athens), 23,000 Jews, 12,000 Armenians, 12,700 Europeans, and the rest Turks.
Smyrna was originally a city of the Greek Æolic immigrants into Asia Minor, but some time before 688 B.C. it had become Ionian. During that century it enjoyed wonderful prosperity as the principal intermediary in trade between Europe (Greece) and Lydia; but in 630 B.C. it was captured and destroyed by Alyattes, king of Lydia. For more than three hundred years it maintained merely a struggling existence; but it was at length rebuilt on a different site by Antigonus, and further enlarged and fortified by Lysimachus, both inheritors of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Under the Romans its commercial fame was revived, though it had rivals in Ephesus and Pergamum, and at a later date a still more formidable rival in Byzantium, to the emperors of which it belonged. It was frequently sacked by the Turks and suffered many reverses, being destroyed by Tamerlane (1402) and finally captured by the Turks under Murad II. in 1424. See Rougon, Smyrne: Situation Commerciale et Economique (1892).