If one were to ask where and how the two fundamental elements of İzmir’s urban identity—its port and trade—intersect, there would be a single answer: hans*. These hans were the final stop in Anatolia for goods transported from the east by camel caravans and the first stop for goods arriving from the west by ships. In a way, serving as the meeting point of the East and West, hans were not only places of trade but also multicultural and multilingual spaces where different cultures came together.
As İzmir’s trade volume increased, the number of hans, among the primary infrastructure elements required for commerce, also began to rise from the mid-17th century onward. In his work Cihannüma, Kâtip Çelebi mentions that there were 60 hans in İzmir, while Evliya Çelebi, who visited the city in 1671, reports the existence of 82. By the late 19th century, records from the 1891 Aydın Province Yearbook indicate that the number of hans in İzmir had reached 147. In İzmir Bazaar, published in 1982, Wolfgang Müller-Wiener mentions the presence of 180 hans and provides a list of them. In his comparative study on the Hans of İzmir, Bozkurt Ersoy evaluates all research conducted in this field and determines that the number of hans in İzmir, excluding those used as warehouses, was 103.
The inner harbor was actively used in the mid-17th century, and during this period, most hans were built along the coastline or near the sea. As the inner harbor began to silt up and the area known today as Kemeraltı took shape, new hans were constructed within this emerging district. By the mid-19th century, when İzmir’s trade reached its peak in terms of volume and variety, Kemeraltı had assumed mainly its present form and was home to over 100 hans of various sizes.
Unfortunately, most of İzmir’s hans where the port and trade thrived, have not survived to the present day. Some were demolished during urban development projects aimed at meeting the city’s growing needs, while others were torn down by their owners after losing their commercial function due to shifts in trade dynamics. Today, the few remaining historic hans in İzmir continue to serve the city with their evolving functions, standing as cultural heritage sites that preserve the identity and memory of the city.
* The term “Han” refers to a type of commercial building that historically functioned as an inn and trade center in Turkish. In English, it is commonly translated as “historic inn” or “caravanserai”.
