Van, Turkey

Van is a city in eastern Turkey's Van Province, on the eastern shore of Lake Van. It is the capital and largest city of Van Province. Van has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BCE, initially as Tushpa, the capital of the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BCE to the 6th century BCE, and later as the center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. Turkic presence in Van and in the rest of Anatolia started as a result of Seljuk victory at the Battle of Malazgirt (1071) against the Byzantine Empire. Van was densely populated by Armenians until the Armenian genocide in the 1910s. Today, it is mostly inhabited by Kurds.