Human and economic geography of Tepebaşi and Odunpazari county (Eskişehir)

Anthropogeography and economic geography features of the area which is in the governmental borders of Odunpazarı and Tepebaşı counties (Eskişehir) that are located in Upper Sakarya Section of Central Anatolian Region are researched in this piece. Both population and the number of the settlement of this area which has 2.682 km² acreage increased with migrations from Crimea, Caucasia and the Balkans that didn't accept the protection of the Ottoman Empire in XIX and XX. Centuries. This increase provided a rapid economic development in both rural and urban areas. The city center of Eskişehir started to liven up in trade and industry because Istanbul railway line passed from this city in 1892 due to its geographical position and Cer Atölyesi (traction workshop) was founded. It became one of the most developed city of the country by developing more and more with industrial investments such as aircraft maintenance, sugar, brick-tile, cloth, cement, biscuit. Yet, this rapid development brought with it some problems such as squattering, irregular urbanization, deforestation, traffic jam. Unlike the rapid growth and development in the city center, the rural area decreased by the immigrations to the especially city center and migrations because of the reasons such as agricultural mechanization, sharing the lands by inheritance, unemployment, desire for a better life, inadequacy of medical and educational services, not being met of social and cultural needs. Rural population which has decreased since 1950 due to the extra sanctions of Büyükşehir (Metropolitan) Law gone in effect in 6th December 2012 is expected to decrease more and more in the near future. Nonetheless, it is possible to say that this area which is one of the important fields of trade, education, industry and agricultural production in the country today, is a candidate place to develop more and more in the future. Yet, precautions that will be taken against some problems determined in terms of anthropogeography and economic geography, contribute both to the development of the investigation area and to the correct usage of the country resources. In this piece, the detection of this area's present condition according to geographical methodology is aimed. This work is built over the features of natural environment considering the fact that human activities cannot be independent from the conditions of physical geography. According to that, in this work which has three parts, " The Features of Natural Environment" in the first part, "The Features of Anthropogeography" in the second part, and "The Features of Economic Geography" in the third part is examined. Finally, this work is completed by mentioning encountered problems and precautions that should be taken in the "Result and Suggestions" part. Key Words: Human Geography, Economic Geography, Eskişehir, Odunpazarı, Tepebaşı