Located in Sivas to the east of central Turkey, the Great Mosque and hospital of Divriği is one of the finest examples of early Turkic architecture in Anatolia. Designed and built by architect Hürrem Şah bin Muğis El-Hılatî of Ahlat on the orders of Emir Ahmed Shah, the ruler of the Mengujekids in 1229, it was built in the honor of the Turkish victory against the Byzantine Empire in The Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
Zeyrek Mosque, or Monastery of the Pantocrator, is an important structure consisting of three orthodox churches.
The mosque in Fatih district was built in 1124 by the wife of the Byzantine Emperor Ioannes Komnenos, empress Eirene Komnena, as a monastery, a library and a hospital. The monastery represents the most typical example of Byzantine medieval architecture as a whole.
Ani was once one of the largest cities in the world, ruling with might over the region, and although now it is an eerie, abandoned city of ghosts, with a little bit of imagination one can almost see the city as it might have been. Located in the northeastern city of Kars.
As an ancient city devoted to Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodisias is one of the most important archaeological sites of the Greek and Roman periods in Turkey. Aphrodisias, the city of Aphrodite, is located in the village of Geyre in the western province of Aydın, just a two hours' drive from the world-famous Ephesus.
Diyarbakır offers culture with every step. From ancient, architectural marvels and spicy, flavorful dishes to its famed exquisite gold and silver filigree work, the city is a treasure trove of history, a haven of natural beauty and a rising center of gastronomy. The city's grandiose walls lend it a medieval air, while its gardens offer visitors a serene oasis, which is all the testimony it needs to become a site worthy of humanity's protection. UNESCO clearly agreed. The cultural landscape was declared a World Cultural Heritage site on July 14, 2015, in Germany's Bonn.
Göbeklitepe, an archaeological site in southeastern Turkey's Şanlıurfa province, has been attracting thousands of tourists from Europe to the Far East and from the U.S. to Africa, since it was included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) World Heritage List in 2018.
Since the Paleolithic era, Cappadocia has been an area popular for settlers due to its natural geological security features that kept civilizations protected from outside forces. This area witnessed the beginnings of Anatolian cultural history, including Christian civilizations and monastic activity that can be dated back to the fourth century.
Early Christians who were fleeing Roman persecution flocked to the caves here and set up intricate monastic communities. The traces of a plethora of churches, troglodyte villages and cities hidden within the rock formations make it the world’s largest urbanized cave complex and showcases the masterpieces from the intelligent minds of early human civilization.
There are few places on Earth that beguile visitors with majesty and a mystic aura. Mount Nemrut in southern Turkey is one of those places. However, it is not its height of a towering 2,134 meters that makes Nemrut a UNESCO World Heritage-worthy site, but rather, it is the gigantic statues of gods commissioned by King Antiochus I of Commagene for his own tomb that makes it a world wonder.
Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988, Pamukkale and Hierapolis top the list of most visited places in Turkey with over 2 million visitors annually. Pamukkale provides a perfect combination of natural and man-made wonders with its travertines as white as cotton stretching to the horizon, standing over the ancient ruins of the spa town Hierapolis.
Founded in 1299, in the northwestern Anatolian town of Söğüt – part of Turkey's Bilecik province, the Ottoman Empire spread across three continents during its 700-year history. The empire, which would eventually become one of the biggest in the history of mankind, was founded by a tribe in that small village. Within 100 years, the Ottomans had become a world power, not in a tiny town, but in Bursa’s Cumalıkızık.
