Sivas

a city in central Turkey; capital of Sivas Vilayet. Population, 133,000 (1970). Sivas has a railroad station and is a high-wayjunction. The city has enterprises for the production of machinery, metal products, cement, wood products, foodstuffs, and textiles. It is the trade center of an agricultural region that specializes in grains, livestock, and wool.

The ancient name for Sivas was Sebasteia. From the late fourth to the late 11th century the city was part of Byzantium. From the late 11th to the early 14th century it was ruled by the Seljuks, including the Sultanate of Konya, which ruled from the late 12th to the early 14th century. In the 14th century Sivas became part of the Ottoman Empire. In September 1919, during the Kemalist Revolution, the Sivas Congress of National Bourgeois Organizations (Associations for the Defense of Rights) was convened in the city. The congress elected the Representative Committee, the de facto provisional government of revolutionary Turkey until April 1920.