Bodrum is a port city in the Muğla province in southwestern Turkey, on the southern coast of the Bodrum Peninsula, at the entrance of the Gulf of Gökova. According to the 2020 census, the population was 40,795. The additional population of the surrounding towns and villages was 100,522, with a total of 136,317 people residing within the district boundaries.
The city was called Halicarnassus (Ἁλικαρνᾱσσός) by the Ancient Greeks. Halicarnassus later came under Persian rule and became the capital of the Carian satrapy. Mausolus ruled Caria from here and BC. After his death in 353, his wife had the Mausoleum of Mausolus built, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Macedonian forces besieged the city and captured it in 334 BC. After Alexander’s death, the city fell to Hellenistic rulers and remained an independent kingdom for a short time until it came under Roman rule in 129 BC.
A series of natural disasters and repeated pirate attacks ravaged the region, and the city lost its importance during the Byzantine period. In 1402, the Knights arrived and used the ruins of Anıtkabir as a quarry to build Bodrum Castle. The castle and its town became known as Petronium, and this is where today’s name Bodrum comes from. After the conquest of Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522, the city came under Ottoman control when the Hospitaller Knights moved to Europe.