Çaykara

Çaykara is a town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. As of 2014, the District Mayor of Çaykara is Hanefi Tok (AKP). Çaykara lies in a V-shaped valley along the Solaklı River in the Pontic Mountains, at an elevation of around 300 metres.

Etymology

The district takes its name from the Çaykara stream, which forms through the conjunction of the Solaklı and Yeşilalan brooks. The historic name of Çaykara, when it was still a village, was Kadahor (meaning "lower town" in Pontic Greek). As is typical in transhumance communities in the Pontic Mountains and the Caucasus, Kadahor was settled with a number of subordinate upland villages for different seasons, which explains its name.

History

Çaykara entered Ottoman rule in 1461, following the Ottoman conquest of the Empire of Trebizond by Sultan Mehmed II.

According to the Ottoman tax books (tahrir defterleri) of 1486, there were 1277 people living in the historic villages that were located within the present-day Çaykara district (namely the villages of Ğorğoras (in Greek: Γοργορά), Holayisa, Paçan and Zeno (in Greek: Ξένος), where there were 235 houses (1 of them inhabited by Muslims, 234 of them by Christians.)