A town of great antiquity, since ancient times the chief port of Asia Minor; is situated amid surrounding hills at the head of the Gulf of Smyrna, an arm of the Ægean Sea; has no imposing structures, and is, especially in the Turkish quarter, ill-drained and crowded; is the seat of the Turkish Governor-General of the province, of archbishops, Roman Catholic, Greek, and Armenian; manufactures embrace carpets, pottery, cottons and woollens; a splendid harbour favours a large import and export trade; for long a possession of Greece and then of Rome, it finally fell into the hands of the Turks in 1424.