Kastamuni
KASTAMUNI, or KASTAMBfjL. (i) A vilayet of Asia Minor which includes Paphlagonia and parts of Pontus and Galatia. It is divided into four sanjaks Kastamuni, Boli, Changra and Sinope is rich in mineral wealth, and has many mineral springs and extensive forests, the timber being used for charcoal and building and the bark for tanning. The products are chiefly cereals, fruits, opium, cotton, tobacco, wool, ordinary goat-hair and mohair, in which there is a large trade. There are coal-mines at and near Eregli (anc. Heracleia) which yield steam coal nearly as good in quality as the English, but they are badly worked. Its population comprises about 993,000 Moslems and 27,000 Christians. (2) The capital of the vilayet, the ancient Castamon, altitude 2500 ft., situated in the narrow valley of the Geuk Irmak (Amnias), and connected by a carriage road, 54 m., with its port Ineboli on the Black Sea. The town is noted for its copper utensils, but the famous copper mines about 36 m. N., worked from ancient times to the 19th century, are now abandoned. There are over 30 mosques in the town, a dervish monastery, and numerous theological colleges (medresses), and the Moslem inhabitants have a reputation for bigotry. The climate though subject to extremes of heat and cold is healthy; in winter the roads are often closed by snow. The population of 16,000 includes about 2500 Christians. Castamon became an important city in later Byzantine times. It lay on the northern trunk-road to the Euphrates and was built round a strong fortress whose ruins crown the rocky hill west of the town. It was taken by the Danishmand Amirs of Sivas early in the 12th century, and passed to the Turks in 1393. (J. G. C. A.)
K ASTORIA (Turkish Kesrie), a city of Macedonia, European Turkey, in the vilayet of Monastir, 45 m. S. by W. of Monastir (Bitolia). Pop. (1905), about 10,000, one-third of whom are Greeks, one-third Slavs, and the remainder Albanians or Turks. Kastoria occupies part of a peninsula on the western shore of Lake Kastoria, which here receives from the north its affluent the Zhelova. The lake is formed in a deep hollow surrounded by limestone mountains, and is drained on the south by the Bistritza, a large river which flows S.E. nearly to the Greek frontier, then sharply turns N.E., and finally enters the Gulf of Salonica. The lake has an area of 20 sq. m., and is 2850 ft. above sea-level. Kastoria is the seat of an Orthodox archbishop. It is usually identified with the ancient Celelrum, captured by the Romans under Sulpicius, during the first Macedonian campaign, 200 B.C., and better known for the defence maintained by Bryennius against Alexis I. in 1084. A Byzantine wall with round towers runs across the peninsula.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
