Cheap car rentals in Bodrum

Bodrum (Turkish pronunciation: [ˈbodɾum]) is a port city and the center of the eponymous district of Muğla Province in southwestern Turkey. It is located on the southern coast of Bodrum Peninsula, at the entrance into the Gulf of Gökova. The population of the town center of Bodrum was 35,795 in the 2012 census. The surrounding towns and villages had an additional population of 100,522, with a cumulative total of 136,317 inhabitants residing within the district’s borders.

The city was called Halicarnassus of Caria (Ancient Greek: Ἁλικαρνᾱσσός) during ancient times. Halicarnassus later fell under Persian rule and become the capital city of satrapy of Caria. Mausolus ruled Caria from here, and after his death in 353 BC, his wife built the Mausoleum of Mausolus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Macedonian forces laid siege to the city and captured it in 334 BCE. After Alexander’s death, rule of the city passed to successive Hellenistic rulers and was briefly an independent kingdom until 129 BCE 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 the Bodrum Castle. The castle and its town became known as Petronium, whence the modern name Bodrum derives. After the conquest of Rhodes by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1522 the town fell under Ottoman control as the Knights Hospitaller relocated to Europe.