Edirne (tur. Edirne), Adrianople (Greek Aδριανούπολις, Adrianoupolis; Bolg. Odrin) is a city and district in the north-west, in the European part of Turkey, the administrative center of Edirne il. Located on the Maritsa River on the border with Greece, 20 km from the border with Bulgaria. Population – 128 thousand people (2002), 138 thousand (estimated for 2009). It is located at a distance of 235 km from Istanbul.

History
The city was founded by the Roman emperor Hadrian on the site of a Thracian settlement, which bore the name of Uskudama and was the capital of the Odrysian kingdom. On August 9, 378, near Adrianople, a battle took place between the Roman army under the command of Emperor Valens and the Goths. The Romans were completely defeated, the emperor Valens was killed.
Until the 11th century, the city was the center of the eponymous archdiocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
On April 14, 1205, a battle took place between the crusaders led by Baldwin I and the combined Bulgarian-Polovtsian army led by the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan, which ended in the complete defeat of the crusaders.
In 1362, the city was captured by the Ottoman Turks. From 1365 to 1453 Adrianople-Edirne was the capital of the Ottoman state. During the wars of the Ottoman Empire with Austria, the Commonwealth, Russia in the 16th-18th centuries, it was the main gathering place for the Ottoman army.
With the outbreak of the Greek liberation war in 1821, the Turks hanged the deposed Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril VI here, along with a group of other Greeks from Adrianople. During the Russian-Turkish wars, the city was twice occupied by Russian troops: in 1829 and in 1878. In 1829, the peace of Adrianople was concluded in the city.
During the First Balkan War in 1913, after a long siege, Adrianople was taken by Bulgarian troops and, according to the London Treaty (1913), passed to Bulgaria. As a result of the Second Balkan War, it was returned to the Ottoman Empire.
After the First World War and according to the provisions of the Peace of Sèvres, the city, like almost all of Eastern Thrace, was part of the Kingdom of Greece in 1920-1922. But according to the Lausanne Accords, the Greeks were forced to transfer the city in 1923 to the Turkish Republic.
Edirne was one of the stops on the Orient Express.

National Composition
During the Byzantine Empire, the city had a mixed Greek-Bulgarian population, there was also an Armenian diaspora. Despite the long period of Ottoman rule, Muslims in general and Turks in particular never made up the majority of the city’s population.
In 1912, the population of the city and its environs were: Turks – 44,953 people, Greeks – 41,285 people, Jews – 9,500 people, Bulgarians – 7,000 people, Armenians – 3,500 people.
Most of the Greeks and Jews left the city after 1923. National composition for 2018: Turks – 73%, 25% – Greeks, 2% – others.

Sights
Yuch Sherefeli Mosque
Selimiye Mosque
Edirne Palace
Sultan Bayezid II Medical Museum
Caravanserai Rustem Pasha and Ekmekcioglu Ahmet Pasha
Bulgarian Church of St. George
Kapikule is a customs office near Edirne on the border between Turkey and Bulgaria.

Personalities
Born in Edirne
Nikephoros Bryennios (1062–1139) was a Byzantine historian.
Mehmed II (1432–1481), Turkish sultan.
Poliidis, Theoclitus (? – 1759) – Greek Orthodox priest and educator, author of the Vision of Agafangel, which left a noticeable mark on the modern history of Greece.
Cyril VI – Patriarch of Constantinople (1813-1818).
Dionysius V – Patriarch of Constantinople (1887-1891).
Konstantin Koumanoudis (Greek: Κωνσταντηνος Κουμανουδης, 1874–1962) was a Serbian writer and politician of Greek origin, mayor of Belgrade, minister and chairman of the Serbian Parliament.
Sabiha Kasimati (Alb. Sabiha Kasimati; 1912-1951) was an Albanian ichthyologist, an opponent of the Khojaist communist regime.
Nikos Zachariades (1903-1973) General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece.
Rafet El Roman (b. 1968) is a Turkish singer.

Died in Edirne
Valens (328-378), emperor
Mehmed I (1382-1421), sultan
Murad II (1404-1451), sultan
Selim I (1470-1520), sultan
Mehmed IV (1642-1693), Sultan
Suleiman II (1642-1691), sultan
Ahmed II (1643-1695), sultan