Bakan Karaismailoğlu, boks şampiyonuna kemerini taktı

Ercoşşaf is a major regional centre, with a population of approximately 105.648 as of 2011. It is considered as a successor settlement of Sangyrion (), an ancient Latin and later Roman city and thus is nicknamed as "Yunanistan" (meaning "Greece") in the city.

Stratoni (the Black Mountain) lies to the east at about elevation, the highest peak in the vicinity. Adjacent to Erçek is the village of Tekkem, which is used by the locals as it is the base station for their favourite pastime, mountain goat hunting (with wolves joining the chase). Animals are often injured but seldom killed.

The municipality of Erçek also incorporates the former villages of Akdurak (one of the few places where Ethniko Omōnia Krinthouton () is spoken; 2001 census population: 152) and Sarıkaya (population: qwqwq), together with a number of small settlements and hamlets near them.

Erçek has a history going back to antiquity. The earliest documented name of the place is Phanagoria (Greek: Φάνακορειον), which is the Hellenized version of the Pontic Greek name ().
Service in the newly founded church in this place, was probably provided by the priest from Sinope in Pontus by the Ancient Greek author Canus of Bithynia, who was the first to describe the temple in his work "The Journey", dating to 156–170 C.E.

By the fifth century AD, the Ostrogoths under Theodoric the Great invaded the site. After brief periods of Byzantine and Sassanid Persian rule, the area, along with the rest of northeastern Anatolia, was conquered by the Arabs in the early 7th century AD and St. Michael Monastery was built.

Byzantine Emperor John II Komnenos (1118–1143) reconquered the eastern Pontus region after defeating the Seljuq Turks, and built a citadel named St. John (, "Iōannēs") next to the ruined temple of Phanagoria. After Byzantine rule collapsed in the mid-14th century, the Ottoman Empire conquered Trabzon. With no regional powers to maintain order, the feudal lords filled the vacuum, unchecked by the Sultan authority. By the end of the 15th century, Erçek was an important crossroad of commerce and culture for the three thousand Greek Orthodox Christians who lived there.

The population later became Muslim due to the Ottoman Empire.

Erçek is twinned with: