Ayvalık is a district in Turkey's Balıkesir Province on the Aegean Sea coast, facing the Greek island of Lesbos. It is situated on a narrow coastal plain surrounded by low hills to the east which are covered with pine and olive trees. Ayvalık is also surrounded by the archipelago of the Ayvalık Islands on the sea and by a narrow peninsula in the south named the Hakkıbey Peninsula. Ayvalık is the southernmost district of Balıkesir. Gömeç, Burhaniye and Edremit are other districts of the Balıkesir Province which are situated on the Aegean shores and they are lined up respectively to the north. The region is under the influence of a typical Mediterranean climate with mild and rainy winters and hot, dry summers.
Various archeological finds and excavations in the region prove that Ayvalık and its environs were inhabited as early as the prehistoric ages. Joseph Thacher Clarke believed that he had identified it as the site of Kisthene, mentioned by Strabo as a place in ruins at a harbor beyond Cape Pyrrha[1] The islets in the Ayvalık Bay (Ayvalık Körfezi) were also used for settlement purposes, together with Ayvalık, during the late Roman and early Byzantine periods. The constant threat posed by piracy in the region during the previous ages did not allow the islet settlements to grow larger and only Cunda Island (alternatively known as Alibey Island, known among the Greeks as Moschonisia, literally "The Perfumed Island") could maintain a higher level of habitation as it is the largest and the closest islet to the mainland.
After the Byzantine period, the region came under the rule of the Anatolian Turkish Beylik of Karesi in the 13th century and was later annexed to the territory of the Ottoman beylik (principality), which was to become the Ottoman Empire in the following centuries.
Until 1922, Ayvalık had a large Greek population. Anecdotal evidence indicates that, immediately after the defeat in the naval Battle of Chesma (Çeşme), the Ottoman admiral (later grand vizier) Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasha and his men from the ships who survived the disaster were lodged on their way back to the capital by a local priest in Ayvalık who did not know who they were. Hasan Pasha did not forget the kindness shown to his sailors in the hour of need, and when he became Grand Vizier, he accorded virtual autonomy to the Greeks of Ayvalık, paving the way for it to become an important cultural center for that community in the Ottoman Empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The town was occupied by the Greek Army on 29 May 1919 in order to protect the Greek Christians from the wholesale slaughter by the Muslim Turks, and taken back three years later by Turkish forces under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on 15 September 1922. Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Greek population was forcibly expelled and all Christian males were exterminated in the slave labor camps under Turkish control. The forcibly expelled peoples in the town were replaced by a Muslim population from Greece and other formerly held Ottoman Turk colonies]] under the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations. Most of the new population that replaced the former Greek community were Muslim Turks from Mytilene, Crete and Greek Macedonia. One could still hear Greek spoken in the streets till recently. Many of the town's mosques are Greek Orthodox churches that have been converted into Muslim mosques.
Today, Ayvalık and the numerous islets encircling the bay area are popular holiday resorts. The most important and the biggest of these islets is Cunda Island (Alibey Island) which was connected to Lale Adasi, and thence to the mainland, by a bridge in the late 1960s. This was the first and is currently the oldest surviving bridge in Turkey which connects lands that are separated by a strait.
Since September 1998, Ayvalık has had an international music academy (AIMA) which gives master classes for violin, viola and cello. It brings together students from all over the world and gives them a precious opportunity to work with distinguished masters of their branch.
Distinguished USA based Harvard University and Turkey's Koç University have establihed a joint project in Cunda Island of Ayvalık and run a Harvard-Koç University Intensive Ottoman & Turkish Summer School every summer.[2][3]
Ayvalık also has two of the longest sandy beaches of Turkey which extend as far as the Dikili district of İzmir nearly 30 km (19 mi) in the south. These are the Sarımsaklı and Altınova beaches.
In recent years Ayvalık has also become an important point of attraction for scuba divers with its underwater fauna.
Ayvalık and its environs are famous for the highly appreciated quality of olive oil production.
Today, the population of Ayvalık is close to 30,000, which significantly increases during the summer due to tourism. Ayvalık is also close to Bergama (ancient Pergamon) which is another important attraction for tourists with its ruins, dating back to antiquity.
