Why it looks like this

İzmir has been a port for close to three thousand years, its quarters climbing from the bay toward Kadifekale, the hilltop castle. For centuries it was one of the Mediterranean's great trading cities, home to Greek, Turkish, Armenian, Jewish and European communities, each with its own district.

In September 1922, at the end of the Greco-Turkish war, a catastrophic fire consumed much of the city. Republican planners rebuilt the burned zone with a modern fan of boulevards and the great Kültürpark fairground — so the map splits between pre-fire lanes on the slopes and post-1922 geometry near the bay.