Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 July 2015
The main objectives of this article are to delineate the economic activities of the port of İzmir in the eighteenth century and to show that İzmir, during the course of the century, developed into the most important port in the import and export trade of the Ottoman Empire with western Europe. The French, operating out of Marseilles, were the principal trading partners of both İzmir and the Ottoman Empire at the time. Among the other most important western European communities that did business in İzmir were the British and the Dutch. İzmir was also the centre of complex and diverse financial transactions that were as important as trade and sometimes even more. Furthermore, this study shows the key role that non-Muslims played in the economic activities of the city-port. İzmir's close commercial relations with major western European economic centres makes the city-port of great importance for the study of Ottoman economic history in the eighteenth century.