ICONIUM (mod. Konia), a city of Asia Minor, the last of the Phrygian land towards Lycaonia, was usually attributed to Lycaonia in the Roman time, but retained its old Phrygian con nection and population to a comparatively late date. It lies in an excellently fertile plain, 6 m. from the Pisidian mountains on the west, with mountains more distant on the north and south, while to the east the plain stretches away for hundreds of miles. Streams from the Pisidian mountains aid the cultivation of the land on the south-west and south of the city, and on the east and north-east a great part of the naturally fertile soil has been irri gated since 1914 with water brought from Beyshehr Lake. Trees grow nowhere except in the gardens near the city.
Originally a Phrygian city, as is implied in Acts xiv. 6, it was in a political sense the chief city of the Lycaonian tetrarchy added to the Galatian country about 165 B.C., and it was part of the Roman province Galatia from 25 B.C. to about A.D. 295. Then it was included in the province Pisidia (as Ammianus Marcellinus describes it) till 372, after which it formed part of the new province Lycaonia so long as the provincial division lasted. Later it was a principal city of the theme of Anatolia. It was thrice visited by Paul, probably in A.D. 47, 5o and 53 ; and it is the principal scene of the tale of Paul and Thecla (which though apocryphal has certainly some historical basis; see THECLA) . There was a distinct Roman element in Iconium, arising doubt less from the presence of Roman traders. This was recognized by Claudius, who granted the honorary title Claudiconium, and by Hadrian, who elevated the city to the rank of a Roman colony about A.D. 13o under the name Colonia Aelia Hadriana Augusta Iconiensium. In later Roman and Byzantine times it must have i been a large and wealthy city. It was a metropolis and an arch bishopric, and one of the earliest councils of the Christian church was held there in A.D. 235. The ecclesiastical organization of Lycaonia and the country round Iconium on all sides was com plete in the early 4th century, and monuments of later 3rd and 4th century Christianity are extremely numerous. It suffered much from the Arab raids in the three centuries following A.D. 66o; its capture in 708 is mentioned, but it never was held as a city of the caliphs. The period of its greatest splendour was after the conquest by the Seljuk Turks about 1072-74. It soon became the capital of the Seljuk state. The palace of the sultans and the mosque of Aia ed-din Kaikobad formerly covered a great part of the Acropolis hill in the northern part of the city. Farther south there is still the great complex of buildings which till recently formed the chief seat of the Mevlevi dervishes, a sect widely spread over Anatolia, but now disbanded; their "Tekke" has been converted into a . museum. The walls, about 2 m. in cir cumference, consisted of a core of rubble and concrete, coated with ancient stones, inscriptions, sculptures and architectural marbles, forming a striking sight. Beyond the walls extended the gardens and villas of a prosperous Oriental population.
When the Seljuk state broke up, and the Osmanli or Ottoman sovereignty arose, Konia decayed. The walls and the palace, still perfect in the beginning of the 19th century, were gradually pulled down for building material, and in 1882 there remained only a small part of the walls, from which all the outer stones had been removed, while the palace was a ruin. At that time and for some years later a large part of Konia was almost deserted. But about 1895 the advent of the Anatolian railway began to restore its prosperity. The water supply was also improved. The sacred buildings were patched up (except a few which were quite ruinous) and the walls wholly removed, but an unsightly fragment of a palace-tower still remained in 1906. In 1904-1905 the first two sections of the Baghdad railway, to Karaman and Eregli, were built.
Iconium is 389 m. by rail from Smyrna by way of Afiun Qara hisar. Pop. (1927) I01,6i4. Carpets are manufactured and mercury is mined.