Süleymaniye is the old town of Gümüşhane, four kilometres south-west of the present centre. Silver and gold gave the place its importance and the silk road kept it: the settlement sat on the route and never lost its position, through Assyrians, Urartians, Medes, Persians, Macedonians, the kingdom of Pontos, Rome, the Umayyads, the Seljuks and the Ottomans.
It passed to Turkish rule in 1461, when Mehmed II ended the Greek state of Trebizond, and took its present shape under Süleyman the Magnificent — which is where the name comes from.
Thirty-five listed structures survive: mosques, churches, a bathhouse, a bridge, shops. The neighbourhood is registered as a third-degree urban and natural conservation area and is also designated a tourism centre, so it is protected and promoted at the same time.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Gümüşhane as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -1.7 °C in January to 20.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (70 mm) and lightest in August (14 mm). Long-term means for 1961-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
