2001/03/01 by Elena Frangakis‐Syrett · 21 citations
Arts and Humanities · Engineering · Social Sciences · #Ancient history #Archaeology #Archaeology and Historical Studies #Black sea #Diplomacy #Economics #Economy #Empire #Engineering #Front (military) #Geography #Global Maritime and Colonial Histories #Harbour #History #Islamic Studies and History #Law #Middle East #Modernity #Oceanography #Ottoman empire #Political science #Port (circuit theory) #Rivalry #Wharf
paper · doi:10.7227/tjth.22.1.3
published in The Journal of Transport History 22(1), 23-46 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2001/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/27
The quay of Izmir (Smyrna) remains one of the most important engineering feats of the nineteenth century in the Middle East and was the first of its kind in the Ottoman Empire. Its scale and modernity placed Izmir, already one of the great ports of the Near East, in the front rank of Mediterranean ports and changed its urban landscape for ever. The vicissitudes of the construction of the quay and harbour complex strikingly illustrate the dilemmas and problems as much of ottoman urban policy as of modern urbanization. As a struggle between the British and the French to dominate the local infrastructure, the harbour of Izmir is also one of the earliest examples of imperialist rivalry in the Ottoman Empire, of the role of European Diplomacy in finance and of European investment in the region