massacred during the Armenian Genocide. Being a border town, Kilis has long had a reputation for smuggling and drug trafficking. Although this has apparently been reduced, even today cigarettes, spirits and cheap electrical items can be bought for cash at low prices. During the Syrian Civil War, the city became a target of continuous rocket attacks by ISIL. in April 2016, the town was struck by rockets fired by ISIS killing 21 people and injuring others. Öncüpınar Accommodation Facility is near the town. Demographics Zakariya al-Qazwini mentioned Kilis as a Turkic village in Athar al-Bilad. In his magazine from 1844, William Harrison Ainsworth included Kilis as a settlement of 12 thousand people, mostly composed of Turkomans and some Armenians, Kurds, and Osmanlis. In 1850, Francis Rawdon Chesney mentioned that Kilis was chiefly inhabited by Turkomans, who were agriculturists and carriers, and also Armenians, Turks, and Kurds, totaling to 12 thousand people. In 1869, American missionaries noted that the prevalent language in Kilis was Turkish unlike Aleppo, while Arabic was mostly spoken by the Greeks of the town, who also understood Turkish but didn't prefer the language. In Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition from 1911, Kilis was included as a town of 20 thousand inhabitants, mainly composed of Circassians, Turkomans, and Arabs. In 1914, the kaza of Kilis consisted of 78,905 Muslims, 434 Greeks, 3,934 Armenians, 775 Jews, 376 Armenian Catholics, and 390 Protestants. Geography Kilis is surrounded by three important cities, Gaziantep, Antakya, and Aleppo, and located at the crossroads of Anatolia and Syria. As a result of its proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, it is located in a region where the climate transitions from a Mediterranean to a continental character. It is also located on the Fertile Crescent, which has been home to settlements since the very beginning of history. The Öncüpınar Syrian border crossing is to the south and the large city of Gaziantep is to the north. Indeed, until 1996 Kilis was a district of Gaziantep Province, being made into a province by Tansu Çiller following an open vote-winning gambit in the 1995 general election. Architecture The city in which traditional stone architecture is dominant, has an organic structure. Narrow streets, stone walls and houses with courtyards inside create the structure of the city together with the monumental buildings. The houses of Kilis are shaped depending on the effects of the climate and cultural approaches and are not