Samsat

Samsat

Samsat is a town and district center of Adıyaman province with the same name. It is the least populated part of the province. It was connected to the Ottoman Empire by Yıldırım Beyazıt in 1392. It was destroyed by Timur in 1401. In 1516, it passed into the hands of the Ottomans by Yavuz Sultan Selim. It became a sanjak center under Ottoman rule. It became a parish center by shrinking in the Republican period. Samsat was made a district center in 1960 and connected to Adıyaman province. Samsat district was evacuated from its old settlement on 05.03.1988 due to being inundated by the Atatürk Dam Lake, and its center was changed to its present location with the law dated 21.04.1988 and numbered 3433. An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 occurred in Samsat, which was built in its new place because it was under the Atatürk Dam. Many buildings were destroyed. So the city was rebuilt. With the archaeological research and excavations carried out today, palaces, aqueducts, castles, etc., belonging to those periods, were found in and around Old Samsat. Structures and valuables were found. Some of these works are exhibited in Adıyaman Museum. Located in the southeast of Adıyaman province in the Southeastern Anatolia Region, the district has 35 people per square kilometer. There is Atatürk Dam Lake in the west, Kahta district in the north, Atatürk Dam Lake in the east, Atatürk Dam Lake in the south (on the opposite shore) and Bozova district of Şanlıurfa. The new district of Samsat looks like a peninsula on the shore of Atatürk Dam Lake, surrounded by a dam lake on three sides. The distance of the district, which is 610 m above sea level, to the city center is 47 km. Samsat is the second smallest district of Adıyaman after Tut district. Although the Mediterranean climate is quite hot and dry in summers and warm and rainy in winters, it resembles the Southeastern Anatolian climate due to its low relative humidity. However, in recent years, the humidity rate has increased relatively due to the Atatürk Dam Lake.