Bodrum

The town was founded by Dorian Greeks. It later fell under Persian rule and became the capital of the satrapy of Caria. Mausolus ruled Caria from here, and after his death in 353 BC, his wife Artemisia built a tomb, called the Mausoleum, for him. Macedonian forces laid siege to the city and captured it in 334 BC. After Alexander's death, the city passed to successive Hellenistic rulers and was briefly an independent kingdom until 129 BC, when it came under Roman rule. A series of natural disasters and repeated pirate attacks wreaked havoc on the area, and the city lost its importance by the time of the Byzantine era. The Knights Hospitaller arrived in 1402 and used the remains of the Mausoleum as a quarry to build Bodrum Castle. After the conquest of Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522, the town fell under Ottoman control as the Knights Hospitaller relocated to Europe.

By the 20th century, the town's economy was mainly based on fishing and sponge diving, but tourism has become the main industry in Bodrum since the late 20th century.