The current town center was founded around 1860 by a group of Armenian merchants from Bitlis with the name Karakilise (قرهکلیسا, lit.'the black church') that became known to the local population as Karakise, and this version was turned officially to Karaköse at the beginning of the Republican era. This name was changed to Ağrı by 1946.[citation needed]
In the years of 1927 to 1931, the region was under the occupation of the Kurdish separatist movements, which gained to establish an unrecognized state named Republic of Ararat which was led by several Kurdish leaders, some of the Main were Ibrahim Heski and Ihsan Nuri.[citation needed]
In the medieval period, the district's administrative centre was located at Alashkert, once an important town. The "kara kilise" or "black church" that gave the town its name was a medieval Armenian church. In 1895 H. F. B. Lynch stayed in Karakilise and wrote that it had between 1500 and 2000 inhabitants, was nearly two-thirds Armenian, and that a barracks for a locally recruited Kurdish Hamidiye regiment had been recently located in the town.[7]
The Armenian population of the town and surrounding valley was massacred by tribal Kurds during the Armenian Genocide: a New York Times report from March 1915 mentions the Alashkert valley being covered with the bodies of men, women, and children.[8]
Economy and infrastructure
Ağrı contains most of the industry in Ağrı Province, where the main economic activity is agriculture and animal husbandry. There is Ağrı Meat and Milk Factory. The ELDESAN leather factory is one of the biggest in the region. There are also a sugar factory, shoe factory, flour mills, agricultural equipment manufacturing sites, brick factory, lime factory, furniture factory, dairy factory and textile mills.[9]
North of Ağrı, there is a longwave broadcasting station with 2 250 metres tall guyed masts, broadcasting on 162 kHz with 1000 kW.
It is a very poor region with extremely cold winters. Most people live by grazing animals on the mountainside. Few people manage to attend university; people tend to marry in their teens, and families with ten or more children are common. The local MP Fatma Salman Kotan has written of the need to erode the patriarchal nature of society in the region.[10]
Demographics
On the eve of the First World War, 8,180 Armenians lived in the kaza of Karakilise. The city itself had a total population of 4,500, half of them being Armenians. The town had two Armenian schools.[11]
Climate
Ağrı has a Mediterranean-influenced warm-summer humid continental climate (Dsb) under Köppen and a warm summer continental climate (Dcb) under Trewartha classification. Summers are generally brief but warm with cool nights. The average high temperature in August is roughly 30 °C (86 °F). Winters are very cold. The average low January temperature is −16 °C (3 °F). It snows a lot in winter, staying for an average of four months in the city. The highest recorded temperature was 39.9 °C (103.8 °F) on 10 August 1961. The lowest recorded temperature in Ağrı was −43.8 °C (−46.8 °F) on 20 January 1972. The highest recorded snow thickness was 225 cm ( 88.6 inches) on 21 February 1985.
Climate data for Ağrı (1991–2020, extremes 1940–2023) (elevation:1646 m)
