Ereğli
Ereğli is located in the southeast of Konya province. There is Emirgazi in the north of the district, Niğde in the east, Karaman and Halkapınar in the south, and Karapınar in the west. It is 150 kilometers from Konya.
The district takes its name from the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, and this name comes from Heracles, a demigodized hero in Greek mythology. The word “Heraclius” in time, in accordance with the phonetic structure of Turkish, respectively; It took the form of Herakle, Irakle, Eregle, Eregli, Eregliyya and finally Eregli.
In Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book, it is written that while Alaeddin Keykubad was returning from Ereğli on an expedition, the mud called Prophet Pınar (currently located in Akhüyük village) got its name from here because he called it Erkili (Ereğli) because it healed the wounds of his wounded soldiers.
Ereğli, which has been under the rule of Hittite, Assyrian, Cimmerian, Phrygian, Lydian, Persian, Alexander Empire, Roman Empire and Byzantium throughout history, witnessed the struggle between Byzantium and Abbasids in 9 centuries. Ereğli, which came under the rule of the Turks during the Anatolian Seljuks and was occupied by the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia between 1211 and 1216, became the first capital of the Karamanoğlu Principality, founded by Nure Sufi Bey during the Anatolian Principalities, between 1250 and 1256. The district joined the Ottoman lands during the reign of Mehmet the Conqueror. In 1553, Suleiman the Magnificent set up a tent and camped on his return from the Iran campaign and had his son Prince Mustafa strangled in Ereğli. With the Baghdad Railway passing through the district, the importance of Ereğli increased even more. Ereğli, which was a district center of Konya province in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, continued to be a district in the Republican period.
