The Turkic peoples give a colour designation to the cardinal points, and white is the west.

Archaeological evidence in the Chokurcha cave [ru; uk] shows the presence of ancient people living in the territory of modern Simferopol.

For some time, Aqmescit was the residence of the Qalğa-Sultan, the second most important position in the Crimean Khanate after the Khan himself.

In 1784 modern Ukrainian[citation needed] Simferopol was founded after the annexation of the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire by Catherine II of Russia.

The name Simferopol is in Greek, Συμφερόπολις (Simferopolis)[citation needed] and literally means "the city of usefulness."

At the end of the Russian Civil War, the headquarters of General Pyotr Wrangel, leader of the anti-Bolshevik White Army, were located there.

On 13 November 1920, the Red Army captured the city and on 18 October 1921, Simferopol became the capital of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

During World War II, Simferopol was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1 November 1941 to 13 April 1944.

[8] Germans perpetrated one of the largest war-time massacres in Simferopol, killing in total over 22,000 locals—mostly Jews, Russians, Krymchaks, and Romani.

An asteroid, discovered in 1970 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova, is named after the city (2141 Simferopol).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Simferopol became the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea within newly independent Ukraine.

Today, the city has a population of 340,600 (2006) most of whom are ethnic Russians, with the rest being Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar minorities.

The city of Simferopol is administratively divided into three urban districts (Zaliznychnyi, Kyivskyi and Tsentralnyi), four urban-type settlements[citation needed] (Ahrarne, Aeroflotskyi, Hresivskyi, Komsomolske) and the village of Bitumne.

[21] Igor Lukashyov was installed as the head of Simferopol City administration (i.e. local executive) after Russia annexed the region in 2014.

At the last census in 2014, the population of Simferopol was 332,317, the highest of any city in the Republic of Crimea and second only to Sevastopol within the Crimean peninsula.

The terminal was designed in the shape of a wave by Samoo Architects & Engineers, after their successful bid as part of an international competition.