Menemen district has a 27 km (17 mi) long coastline in the west and neighbors Manisa Province to the east.

Settlement across the district is loosely scattered along the Greater Metropolitan Area of İzmir in the south and consists of isolated villages along prairies in the north, which results in an average urbanization rate of only 42 per cent.

These two organized industrial zones as well as activities rebounding from the adjacent İzmir metropolitan area gain an increasing importance in the district's economy.

[4] In any case, it is obvious, particularly in the light of recent discoveries made at the premises of Ege Fertilizer (Ege Gübre; the site being termed in the literature under the name of the industrial installations), at Araptepe and more particularly at Panaztepe and Menemen's Larissa, that settlement in the region extends far back in prehistoric times, at least until the late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic.

Drinking water obtained from sources at Mount Yamanlar south of Menemen, and sold under brand names associated with the mountain are also very popular across İzmir region as a whole.

Historical vestiges of Menemen occupy a small area in the old neighborhood of the town, marked by the recently restored Taşhan (literally the stone caravanserai) whose precise date of construction is unknown but is thought to have been built end-16th or early-17th century.

A few shrines-tombs in the Turkish style dating from mid-Ottoman centuries near Taşhan, two old mosques, a number of old houses, as well as the abandoned remains of what is likely to have been the town synagogue complete the picture.

In nearby Hıdırtepe, slightly outside the popular quarter of Menemen characterized by low single-storeyed houses with gardens, typical for the climate of the plain, is another Ottoman shrine as well as the memorial area dedicated to Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay in a military zone open to visitors and occupying the summit of the hill, with tombs and a renowned high statue.

With the decadence of Seljuks in the last quarter of the 13th century, local feudal lords had founded several principalities on the Anatolian territory.

At the moment of the Turkish conquest, Menemen didn't exist as a town: it was only the center of the domanial complex the aristocratic Byzantine family of Tarchaneiotes possessed in the area.

As a reminder of its origin, this new locality was called Tarhaniyat, and this alternative name survived for a long time, as the Ottoman documentation shows, in particular census registers.

At least under the end of the 18th century, Menemen was one of the important traditional centers of production of textiles and clothing in western Anatolia, advantaged by its location right in the middle of a region where cotton was cultivated in a large scale.

Its fabrics, and particularly those called the "demite", "demiton" and "escamite" were much sought after, notably as export products in overseas markets [7] From 1867 until 1922, Menemen was part of the Aydin Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire with its seat in İzmir.

In 1914, the local Greek population in the area was affected by the violent ethnic cleansing campaign of the Ottoman state, while Ottoman irregular bands, Bashi-bazouks, some were Cretan Muslims, many of them were Muslim refugees, were looting and murdering local Greeks, looting villages south of Menemen.

The CUP saw this as retaliation for the Muslims suffering under Greek domination since the Balkan wars (1912-1913), in which tens of thousands had left their homes.

On December 23, 1930, Dervish Mehmed, a Cretan Muslim[17] Sufi and self-proclaimed prophet, arrived in Menemen with six followers in an attempt to incite rebellion against the secular government and reestablish Islamic law.

Mehmed and his enthusiastic supporters overwhelmed the local army garrison and killed the commander, Lieutenant Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay.