Manisa, historically known as Magnesia, is a large city in Turkey's Aegean Region and the administrative seat of Manisa Province.
Modern Manisa is a booming center of industry and services, advantaged by its closeness to the international port city and the regional metropolitan center of İzmir and by its fertile hinterland rich in quantity and variety of agricultural production. In fact, İzmir's proximity also adds a particular dimension to all aspects of life's pace in Manisa in the form of a dense traffic of daily commuters between the two cities, separated as they are by a half-hour drive served by a fine six-lane highway nevertheless requiring attention at all times due to its curves and the rapid ascent across Mount Sipylus's mythic scenery.
The historic part of Manisa spreads out from a forested valley in the immediate slopes of Sipylus mountainside, along Çaybaşı Stream which flows next to Niobe's "Weeping Rock", an ancient bridge called the "Red Bridge" as well as to several tombs-shrines in the Turkish style dating back to the Saruhan period.