[citation needed] One theory holds that the city name originates from an Indo-European expression a danu 'on the river', using the same Proto-Indo-European root as the Danube, Don, Dnieper and Donets.

[5] An older legend, in Akkadian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite mythologies, attributes the name to the storm and rain god, Adad, who lived in the surrounding forests.

[citation needed] According to Ali Cevad's Memalik-i Osmaniye Coğrafya Lügat (Ottoman Geographical Dictionary), the Muslims of Adana attributed the city's name to Ebu Süleym Ezene, who was appointed as Wāli by Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid.

The uncertain loyalty of Syennessis during the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger led Artaxerxes II to abolish the Syennesis administration and replace it with a centrally appointed satrap.

[11] The Seleucids ruled Adana for more than two centuries until they were weakened by a civil war which led them to offer allegiance to Tigranes II, the King of Armenia who conquered a vast part of the Levant.

Philippus took part in the Council of Chalcedon in 451[13] and was a signatory of the joint letter of the bishops of Cilicia Prima to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian in 458 protesting at the murder of Proterius of Alexandria.

[16] At the Battle of Sarus in April 625, Heraclius defeated the forces of Shahrbaraz of the Sasanian Empire that were stationed on the east bank of the river, after a fearless charge across the bridge built by the Emperor Justinian (now Taşköprü).

During the Armenian era, Adana continued as a centre for handicrafts and international trade as part of an ancient network from Asia Minor to North Africa, the Near East and India.

When the revolution of July 1908 brought about the end of Abdul Hamid II's autocratic rule, the Armenian community felt empowered to imagine an autonomous Cilicia.

As soon as news of the countercoup reached Cilicia, enraged members of the Cemiyet-i Muhammediye[26] and dissatisfied peasants left out of work by mechanisation flocked to the city on market day.

Without even investigating the rumour, the military commander Mustafa Remzi Pasha directed soldiers and bashi-bazouks towards the Armenian quarters and for three days they shot people, destroyed buildings and burned down Christian neighbourhoods.

Armenian intellectuals Rupen Zartarian, Sarkis Minassian, Nazaret Daghavarian, Harutiun Jangülian, and Karekin Khajag, who were deported from Constantinople on April 24th, were kept in custody in the Vilayet offices for a few days.

[30] The Minister of the Interior, Talaat Pasha, wanted to end the exemption of Adana Armenians and sent his second in command, Ali Munif, to the city in mid-August to order the resumption of the deportations.

Unlike the deportees of other Vilayets, many of Adana's Armenians were sent to Damascus and further south, thereby avoiding the death camps of Deir ez-Zor, at the request of Djemal Pasha.

Adana became one of the cities with the most confiscated property, which meant that muhacirs (immigrants) from the Balkans and Crete, as well as migrants from Kayseri and Darende were resettled in the Armenian and Greek neighbourhoods, with more modest pieces of land, houses and workshops distributed to them.

With the completion of the Seyhan Dam in 1956, the city saw explosive growth and the then prime minister Adnan Menderes showed special interest in Adana, initiating large-scale infrastructure projects like citywide underground sewer systems and rezoning residential areas.

Called New Adana, the project consisted of 200,000 homes including villas along the lake shore and high-rise apartment blocks along the wide, newly opened boulevards of Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel and Kenan Evren.

With the construction of new bridges over the river and the extension of the metro line, Yüreğir became increasingly important, with the Adana Court of Justice re-locating to the district and a 47.5-hectare health campus planned for the Kazım Karabekir neighbourhood.

Extensive neo-liberal policies adopted by then Prime Minister Turgut Özal to centralise Turkey's economy caused almost all the Adana-based companies to move their headquarters to Istanbul.

[65] After 20 years of stagnation, Adana's economy is starting to pick up again with investments in the tourism and service industries, and the wholesale and retail sectors, and the city is being re-shaped as a regional centre.

[71] Adana is the marketing and distribution centre for the Çukurova agricultural region, where cotton, wheat, corn, soy bean, barley, grapes and citrus fruits are produced in great quantities.

The Armenian Church on Ali Münif Street, midway between the Yağ Camii and the Büyük Saat, was converted into a branch of the Ziraat Bank during the Republican Era.

The Süleyman Demirel Arboretum is a large botanical garden containing collections of woody plants intended partly for scientific study by Çukurova University researchers.

The city is also famous for its Şırdan a kind of sausage stuffed with rice and eaten with cumin; for paça, boiled sheep's feet; and for bicibici (pronounced as bee-jee-bee-jee) made from jellied starch, rose water and sugar and served with crushed ice especially in the summer.

[102] Çukurova Art Days is a regional festival that has been taking place annually since 2007 in Adana, Mersin, Tarsus, Antakya, İskenderun, Silifke, Anamur and (in the past) in Aleppo.

[104] The first pavyons opened before 1942 with the arrival of Englishmen who worked on the Adana-Ulukışla road that was funded by the British Government in an effort to persuade Turkey to join World War II.

Varag Pogharian and Mateos Zarifian played an important role in organising the athletic movement and the first sports clubs in the city were founded by the Armenian community.

The biannual Men's European Wheelchair Basketball Championship took place in Adana on 5–15 October 2009; twelve countries competed and Italy won the title after a final game against Turkey.

Recreationally, the lack of swimming pools make the Seyhan River and the irrigation canals attractive for swimmers who want to cool off in the hot, humid summers.

Extra summer bus services operate to the high plains of Tekir, Bürücek and Kızıldağ to enable Adana residents to escape the city heat.