Protecting the living from the dead: cemeteries and urban expansion of Ottoman Izmir in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries

The nineteenth century witnessed a significant urban transformation in cities like Izmir, driven by industrialization and migration, leading to public health and population growth challenges. As the city expanded, cemeteries on the outskirts, once peripheral, were drawn into the expanding urban core, prompting their relocation. Local administrations took measures to transfer cemeteries, because of the rising public health concerns for those in close proximity to densely populated areas. This paper examines the cemetery removals in Izmir during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, driven by urban expansion and public health risks. This process was not dissimilar to industrial cities of Britain and France in that period, however local policies and processes gave a distinct characteristic to Izmir, where the practice of removals was intertwined with the politics of urban development, public health, and space management. In Izmir, public health concerns led to the immediate prohibition of new burials in intramural cemeteries. Furthermore, cemeteries located in the peripheral areas of the city were progressively impacted by policies aimed at removing intramural cemeteries. As urban sprawl continued, these peripheral cemeteries were gradually incorporated into the urban landscape, transforming them from extramural to intramural cemeteries and thus making them target to the same regulations. Burial places in Izmir, once sacred grounds, were reconfigured as a recreational area or a ground for the public building complexes in relation to this urban expansion. As a result, urban expansion redefined both meaning of burial places in both agenda of urban planning and people’s practices.