Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Ala-Shehr

ALA-SHEHR, a city of Asiatic Turkey, in the pashalic of Anatolia, 83 miles E. of Smyrna. It is dirty and ill-built; but, standing on elevated ground, and commanding the prospect of the extensive and fertile plain of the Hermus, presents at a distance an imposing appearance. It is the seat of a Greek archbishop, and has five Christian churches and fifteen mosques. The city occupies the site of the ancient Philadelphia, one of the “seven churches in Asia” of the Apocalypse. The ancient city, founded two centuries b.c., was subject to frequent earthquakes. In more modern times it was celebrated for its prolonged resistance to the Turks, who took it in 1390, after all the other cities of Asia Minor had surrendered. Ala-Shehr has an active trade, and the population is about 18,000.