Tunceli (, , ) is a municipality (

belde Belde (literally "town", also known as ''kasaba'') means "large village with a municipality" in Turkish language, Turkish. All Turkish province centers and district centers have municipalities, but the Villages of Turkey, villages are usually too ...

) in Tunceli District and capital of

Tunceli Province Tunceli Province (), formerly Dersim Province (; ; ), is a province in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Its central city is Tunceli. The province has a Kurdish majority. Moreover, it is the only province in Turkey with an Alevi majority. ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The city has a Zaza majority. It had a population of 35,161 in 2021.

Name

During Ottoman times, the settlement was called ''Kalan'' or ''Mameki''. Tunceli, which is a modern name, literally means "bronze fist" in Turkish (''tunç'' meaning "bronze" and ''eli'', in this context, meaning "fist"). It shares the name with the military operation under which the Dersim massacre was conducted. The province of Dersim (or Dêrsim) was renamed Tunceli in 1935, as was the settlement of Kalan, which became the province's administrative center in 1938. Dersim is popularly understood to be composed of the Kurdish/Zazaki words ''der'' ("door") and ''sim'' ("silver"), thus meaning "silver door." Whether the town should be called Dersim or Tunceli has been a cause of political quarrels. In May 2019, the local authorities decided to call it Dersim, while the governor said it was against the law to call it Dersim.

History

During the time of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

, Tunceli (then known as Kalan) was a part of the region named ''Dersim''. In 1847, Dersim was declared a

sanjak A sanjak or sancak (, , "flag, banner") was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans also sometimes called the sanjak a liva (, ) from the name's calque in Arabic and Persian. Banners were a common organization of nomad ...

(a historical administrative unit smaller than the province). The capital of the sanjak was Hozat. During the Republican period, Tunceli Province was established in 1935. In 1946, the former town of Kalan was renamed as Tunceli and it was declared as the capital city of the province. As a result of the Turkish campaign of "

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...

" Tunceli became a main target of Turkish officials after the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Tunceli played a role in the

Dersim rebellion The Dersim massacre, also known as Dersim genocide, was carried out by the Turkish military over the course of three operations in the Dersim Province (renamed Tunceli) against Kurds, Kurdish rebels of Kurdish Alevism, Alevi faith, and civilians ...

by the

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

. Tunceli is famous for excellent rankings in National Education statistics.

Politics

In the Municipal Elections which took place on 31st of March 2019, Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu was elected Mayor. He is the first mayor of Tunceli from the Communist Party of Turkey. In 2018, Turkish president

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

stated that if "those involved with terrorism" (referring to the HDP party) were to win the elections, that his government would "appoint trustees without delay". In May 2019 the Municipal Council decided to use the city's historic name Dersim and also to offer municipal services in Zazaki and

Kurmanji Kurmanji (, ), also termed Northern Kurdish, is the northernmost of the Kurdish languages, spoken predominantly in southeast Turkey, northwest and northeast Iran, northern Iraq, northern Syria and the Caucasus and Khorasan regions. It is the ...

. 4 Members of the newly elected municipal council had their certificates revoked in May 2019 for having been dismissed from public office in the past.

Economy

The main economic activity is animal breeding. Wheat is the only notable agricultural product. There are chromium, salt and marble deposits, but only salt is produced. There are a few factories based on agriculture.

Climate

Tunceli has a

continental climate Continental climates often have a significant annual variation in temperature (warm to hot summers and cold winters). They tend to occur in central and eastern parts of the three northern-tier continents (North America, Europe, and Asia), typi ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (1951–2014), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author ...

: ''Dsa,'' Trewartha: ''Dc'') with very hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters.

References

{{Authority control Tunceli Provincial municipalities in Turkey Turkish Kurdistan Populated places in Tunceli Province Kurdish settlements in Tunceli Province