This Week We're Reading
More from the Atlas →Atlas · Cities of Türkiye
Antalya, the turquoise capital of the Mediterranean
Roman Attaleia beneath the Taurus, the walled old town of Kaleiçi, and the long shingle beaches of the gulf. Our Atlas guide to the coast's great city, its harbour, and the ruins scattered along the shore.
Read the city guide →"A peninsula that has belonged, in turn, to Hittites and Phrygians, Lydians and Lycians, Greeks and Romans, Byzantines and Seljuks, Ottomans and the Republic, and which still, every morning, smells of olive oil and the sea."
The Timeline
Explore the timeline →A scrollable journey from Çatalhöyük's earliest hearths to the Republic. Click any era to step inside.
↔ Scroll the timeline horizontally on touch devices
The Civilisations of Anatolia
All civilisations →Each people that has lived on this peninsula has left a layer. These are the deepest of them.
From Hattusha they ruled an empire to rival Egypt, and gave the region its first written history.
Midas, Gordion, the music of the aulos, and the rock-cut tombs of the central plateau.
The kingdom of Van, builders of fortresses and the first great metalworkers of the highlands.
Croesus, the first coined money, and a kingdom from Sardis that taught the ancient world about wealth.
Twelve cities of Ionia, Halicarnassus, Pergamon, Ephesus, the Greek world's eastern half.
Constantinople and the eastern Roman empire, which ruled most of Anatolia for a thousand years.
After Manzikert, the Turkic court at Konya, and the great hans (caravanserais) along the trade roads.
Six centuries of empire from Bursa to Edirne to Istanbul, and the architecture of Mimar Sinan.
The Cities
All cities →Anatolia in two registers: the cities the ancients built and the cities Türkiye lives in now.
Ancient cities · of Asia Minor
The Greek and Roman cities of the western and southern coasts, plus the great inland sites. Each is covered inside the host-province essay.
Modern cities · of Türkiye today
The provincial centres where Anatolia lives in 2026, each with a deep-dive page.
Anatolian Tables
All food essays →Regional kitchens, told as essays. For the actual recipes, our sister site TurkishCooking.com has every dish in detail.
Hot shredded pastry over unsalted cheese, dark gold under, syrup-soaked, eaten the moment it leaves the oven.
Bulgur kneaded for hours with pepper paste, isot, and walnut, until the dough turns dark red and binds itself.
Cornmeal cooked into stretching pulled-cheese with butter, the eaten landscape of the Pontic mountains.
The Seven Regions
All regions →Türkiye's geography divides naturally into seven regions, each with its own climate, landscape, and table.
Istanbul · Bursa · Edirne · Çanakkale
İzmir · Bodrum · Ephesus · Pergamon
Antalya · Mersin · İskenderun · Hatay
Ankara · Konya · Cappadocia · Hattusha
Trabzon · Sinop · Rize · Samsun
Erzurum · Van · Bingöl · Kars
Gaziantep · Şanlıurfa · Diyarbakır · Mardin
Borders, coastlines, climate · CountryOfTurkey.com