Balıkesir in the context of "Balıkesir Province"

The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some 215,000 km (83,000 sq mi). In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn connects to the Black Sea, by the straits of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, respectively. The Aegean Islands are located within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea reaches a maximum depth of 2,639 m (8,658 ft) to the west of Karpathos. The Thracian Sea and the Sea of Crete are main subdivisions of the Aegean Sea.

The Aegean Islands can be divided into several island groups, including the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, the Sporades, the Saronic islands and the North Aegean Islands, as well as Crete and its surrounding islands. The Dodecanese, located to the southeast, includes the islands of Rhodes, Kos, and Patmos; the islands of Delos and Naxos are within the Cyclades to the south of the sea. Lesbos is part of the North Aegean Islands. Euboea, the second-largest island in Greece, is located in the Aegean, despite being administered as part of Central Greece. Nine out of twelve of the Administrative regions of Greece border the sea, along with the Turkish provinces of Edirne, Çanakkale, Balıkesir, İzmir, Aydın and Muğla to the east of the sea. Various Turkish islands in the sea are Imbros, Tenedos, Cunda Island, and the Foça Islands.

The Marmara region (Turkish: Marmara Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey.

Located in East Thrace, it is bordered by Greece and the Aegean Sea to the west, Bulgaria and the Black Sea to the north, the Black Sea Region to the east, and the Aegean Region to the south. At the center of the region is the Sea of Marmara, which gives the region its name. The largest city in the region is Istanbul. Other big cities are Bursa, İzmit, Balıkesir, Tekirdağ, Çanakkale and Edirne.

The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 was fought between Greece and the Turkish National Movement during the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I, between 15 May 1919 and 14 October 1922. This conflict was a part of the Turkish War of Independence.

The Greek campaign was launched primarily because the western Allies, particularly British prime minister David Lloyd George, had promised Greece territorial gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, recently defeated in World War I. Greek claims stemmed from the fact that Western Anatolia had been part of Ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire before the Turks conquered the area in the 12th–15th centuries. The armed conflict started when the Greek forces landed in Smyrna (now İzmir), on 15 May 1919. They advanced inland and took control of the western and northwestern part of Anatolia, including the cities of Manisa, Balıkesir, Aydın, Kütahya, Bursa, and Eskişehir. Their advance was checked by Turkish forces at the Battle of the Sakarya in 1921. The Greek front collapsed with the Turkish counter-attack in August 1922, and the war effectively ended with the recapture of Smyrna by Turkish forces and the great fire of Smyrna.

Bakırçay (Latin: Caicus, Ancient Greek: Κάϊκος) is a river in Turkey. It rises in the Gölcük Dağları mountains and debouches into the Gulf of Çandarlı.

In antiquity, the Bakırçay was or formed part of the Kaikos or Caicus River which flowed near the city of Pergamon and was the site of the Battle of the Caecus River. The Kaikos River is mentioned by Hesiod and Plutarch, who claims that its name was originally Astraeus (Ἀστραῖος) but was changed after Caicus, a son of Hermes, threw himself into it after sleeping with his sister Alcippe. However, since the course of the river has changed since antiquity it is not clear how the ancient names apply to the modern geographical features. Leake infers from the direction of L. Scipio's march from Troy to the Hyrcanian plain, that the Caicus was the north-eastern branch of the river of Pergamon which flows by Menduria (possibly Gergitha) and Balıkesir (Caesaraea). The Caicus as it seems is formed by two streams which meet between 50 and 65 km above its mouth, and it drains an extensive and fertile country. Strabo (p. 616) says that the sources of the Caicus are in a plain separated by the range of Temnos from the plain of Apiae, and that the plain of Apia lies above the plain of Thebe in the interior. He adds that there also flows from Tetanus a river (the Mysius) which joins the Caicus below its source. The Caicus enters the sea approximately 12 km from Pitane, and 3 km from Elaea. Elaea was the port of Pergamon, which was on the Caicus, approximately 25 km from Elaea.