Özet:

Bitlis is founded in a narrow and deep valley where the Bitlis Tea, which forms one of the arms of the Dicle River, opens between the southeastern Toros, at 1400-1450 meters above sea level. In the mountainous and narrow area that it possesses because of its geographical location, Al-Cezar has been a path that people have forced to pass for the very ancient times, because it is located on the road that connects the plains to the central plates of Eastern Anadolu, from there to Iran and the Caucasus. Therefore, the city, in the historical process, has been a place where Urartans, Asurans, Medlers, Perses, Romans, Byzantines, Selchucks, Eyyubs, the Armenian kingdoms and some Kurdish Bejliks and Ottomans want to establish domination. The city has also attracted the interest of some Western travelers and researchers from the east and southeast of Anatolia, such as Tavernier, Kinneir, Ainsworth, Brant, Taylor, Müller Simonis, Hyvernat, Nolde. One of these travelers and researchers is the British traveler and researcher H. F. B. Lynch. This study is based on two travel notes recorded by English-born Lynch in 1893 and 1898 and first published in London in 1901 under the name "Armenia Travels and Studies". The aim of the study is to provide some contribution to the lighting of Bitlis' historical history by evaluating Lynch's travel notes, the information he has given about the city's historical geography, physical structure and social tissue.