Çorum's Urban Development (1950-1980): Planning, Electricity, Water, Buses and Municipal Services

According to the chapter by İlhan Tekeli in Çorum Tarihi (Turkish, “History of Çorum”), the population of Çorum rose from 22,800 in 1950 to 76,800 in 1980; this rapid growth transformed the city’s settlement pattern, infrastructure and municipal services over three decades (Çorum Tarihi, p. 309).

The Leap in Roads and Transport

After the Second World War, Türkiye’s shift in transport policy from rail to road created a major opportunity for Çorum. Completed in 1955, the 116-km Çorum-Çerikli-Ankara road (within the province) became the city’s main transport axis, ending its heavy dependence on Samsun and intensifying its ties with Central Anatolia and Ankara (Çorum Tarihi, p. 280). By 1967 the province had 571 km of state roads, 420 km of provincial roads and 660 km of village roads (Çorum Tarihi, p. 280).

Intercity bus services also became institutionalized in this period: in 1952 the Celal Güçlü and Atıf Seydim firms operated on the Ankara-Amasya routes; in 1954 Fazlı Baykara, Lütfi Çerikli, Fuat Kuşçu and Ferhat Akpınar joined forces to found the Güven office. The scattered bus offices were brought into order when the municipal bus garage opened in 1960; the same year İsmail Ülgen and partners founded the Çorum Seyahat company, which split in 1974, giving rise to the Hattuşaş company in Ankara. In 1976 entrepreneurs from Alaca founded the Koparan company. In 1981 these three firms had 12, 12 and 25 buses respectively (Çorum Seyahat, Hattuşaş, Koparan) and together ran 30 daily departures on the Çorum-Ankara route with a capacity of 1,200 passengers (Çorum Tarihi, p. 282). Communications also improved: Çorum’s PTT (post and telecommunications) had 9 centres, 17 branches and 110 agencies; in 1980 the city had 600 telephone subscribers with 7,884 on the waiting list, and in January 1981 Çorum was connected to the automatic long-distance telephone system with the code 4691 (Çorum Tarihi, p. 283-284).

Zoning Plans and Urban Growth

The city’s first modern zoning plan was prepared in 1950 by Pertev Taner for İller Bankası (the Bank of Provinces); as the city outgrew it, a new master plan projecting a population of 74,000 for 1990 was approved in 1962, with implementation plans following in 1968 — though the municipality never fully embraced this plan (Çorum Tarihi, p. 310-312). In 1976-77 a new master plan prepared by architects Fahri Yetman and Behçet Baykurt envisaged a population of 160,000 by 1995 over 2,350 hectares, allocating 675 hectares to housing, 342 to industry and small crafts, and 176 to the fairground and entertainment area (Çorum Tarihi, p. 312-313).

The single largest step in the city’s physical growth was the Binevler mass-housing project, designed by architects Altuğ and Behruz Çinici and approved on 13 January 1973: on a 135-hectare site 5 km from the city centre, it aimed to build 3,000 dwellings and a new urban quarter for 15,000 people. A survey of the cooperative’s first 461 members found that 27.5% were tradesmen/craftsmen, 20.8% civil servants/officers and 17.4% workers (Çorum Tarihi, p. 313-315). At the same time, four successive “squatter-prevention zones” were planned south of the city; the first, approved in 1971, provided 470 dwellings in Gülabibey neighbourhood; the third, approved in 1975, covered 35 hectares for 1,500 people; and the fourth, approved in 1977, covered 25 hectares north of the city (Çorum Tarihi, p. 312-316). In the same period, Bahçelievler neighbourhood began developing through the Bahçelievler Cooperative, founded in 1948 with then-mayor Baha Çorbacıoğlu among its founders (Çorum Tarihi, p. 313-314). The 1976 initiative by the provincial special administration, the municipality and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry to establish the Çorum Organized Industrial Zone was also part of this planning drive (Çorum Tarihi, p. 316).

Electricity, Water and Sewers

Çorum, one of Anatolia’s first municipalities to generate its own electricity back in 1923, saw its subscriber count rise from 2,034 in 1950 to 24,936 in 1981. Power supply passed through three stages: first solely from the municipality’s diesel generators, then, from 1958, by purchasing cheaper power from the cement factory, and finally, from 1969, by connecting to the national grid (TEK) (Çorum Tarihi, p. 317-318).

The number of water subscribers rose from 682 in 1950 to 10,754 in 1981. Alongside the Mürsel spring, further sources were added over time — Sıklık (1950), Melikgazi (1960), and Kavacık and Serpin, brought in by İller Bankası (1965-68); the Çomar Dam, built 1974-78, and the DSİ-built Seydim reservoir began supplying the city as well. The network grew from 7.7 km in 1950 to 185 km in 1980, and a water treatment plant came into service in 1978 (Çorum Tarihi, p. 318). Planned sewer construction only began in 1973 through İller Bankası; by 1981 the city had a 284-km sewer network, built with the help of a concrete-pipe plant set up specifically for the project in Çorum (Çorum Tarihi, p. 319).

City Buses and Other Municipal Services

Organized public transport within the city began with the municipal bus operation founded on 3 May 1964: it started with 14 buses on 3 routes, also serving the vineyard districts in summer. By 1980 the addition of the Binevler route brought the number of lines to 8 and daily ridership to 13,000; from 1981 the municipality also began running buses to villages 17-27 km away along the Samsun, Alaca and Cemilbey roads. The fleet was reinforced with 8 Fiat buses bought in 1966 and 4 Mercedes buses in 1980; municipal buses had operated without conductors from the start (Çorum Tarihi, p. 319).

Other municipal services grew in similar fashion: the fire brigade expanded from 3 water tankers and 9 staff in 1950 to 23 vehicles (including 6 tankers and an automatic ladder truck) and 47 staff in 1980; refuse collection switched from horse carts to motor vehicles after 1959-60, reaching 211 staff and an average of 609 tonnes of waste collected daily by 1980. A new slaughterhouse and cold-storage facility, opened in 1971 with support from the Meat and Fish Authority, had a capacity of 80,000 animals a year and produced 10 tonnes of ice daily. The municipal band, made up of a bandmaster and 17 musicians, was founded in 1961 under Governor and Mayor Celâlettin Ünseli. According to the book, from 1980 the Çorum municipality became the first in Türkiye to carry out asphalt paving itself, winning the work through tender from the state highways authority (Çorum Tarihi, p. 319-320).

This three-decade infrastructure push laid the foundation of Çorum’s present-day urban form. For the economic transformation of the same period, see our page on The Birth of Industry in Çorum (1950-1980).

Sources

• İlhan Tekeli, “1950-1980 Döneminde Kentin Faaliyetlerindeki Gelişmeler” (“Developments in the City’s Activities in the Period 1950-1980”), Çorum Tarihi (History of Çorum), 5. Hitit Festivali Komitesi; ed. Çorum Belediyesi Kent Arşivi, 3rd ed., Çorum Belediyesi Kültür Yayını, Çorum 2020, p. 277-283, 309-320. https://www.corum.bel.tr/public/uploads/2026/01/corumtarihi.pdf