Central Anatolia

Central Anatolia (Turkish: İç Anadolu) is a region of Turkey. It extends over the country's central plateau, and the capital Ankara is here. It's been inhabited by multiple civilisations and so is dotted with places of interest.

• 39.9357632.838691 Ankara the capital of Turkey is a fascinating mix of old and new.
• 39.77666730.5205562 Eskişehir is a pleasant riverside university town.
• 39.42416729.9833333 Kütahya makes fabulous tiles.
• 38.75805630.5386114 Afyonkarahisar or Afyon has an impressive hilltop citadel.
• 37.87276932.4921395 Konya has many Seljuk monuments and was home to the Mevlana, the dancing dervishes.
• 38.722535.48756 Kayseri is near Mount Erciyes, a winter sports resort.
• 39.7537.0166677 Sivas has a Seljuk Madrasa complex.

• 40.105731.59831 Nallıhan Bird Reserve — wetlands with birdwatching facilities and the views of the striking 'Rainbow Hills' across
• 39.204330.71482 Phrygian Valley is an unofficial name for the rocky countryside between Eskişehir, Kütahya, and Afyon, with striking Phrygian tombs and sites.
• 39.19583329.6194443 Çavdarhisar has the immense Temple of Zeus.
• 37.667532.8283334 Çatalhöyük is one of the earliest known towns.
• 38.67055634.8391675 Cappadocia is the surreal landscape of "fairy chimneys" and underground cities. Nevşehir is the main city, but the best scenery is around Göreme.
• 40.02111134.6097226 Hattusa was the ancient Hittite capital.
• 39.37111138.1136117 Divriği has an elegant Seljuk Great Mosque.

Central Anatolia is an extensive plateau at about 1000 m altitude. It’s hot and dry in summer, and bitter cold in winter, so the shoulder seasons are the best time to visit. Nevertheless it’s fertile and flat, so agriculture and transport are straightforward, and it’s been populated since the dawn of mankind. It’s ringed by mountains and canyons but within has few natural boundaries, so competing civilisations have fought over it, intermingled and built on top of each other. For instance Polatlı is a humdrum agricultural town near Ankara yet with relics of the earliest and latest clashes: from 6000 BC it was a stronghold of the Hittites then the Phrygians. In 1921 it saw the crucial battle that halted the Greek invasion and pushed them back to the coast, securing the modern borders of the Republic of Turkey.

The best place to get an overview of this history is the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara: many artefacts have been brought here, safe from looters and souvenir-hunters. Çatalhöyük near Konya is one major archaeological site you can visit, one of the oldest known towns, inhabited from 7500 BC. It was abandoned around 5700 BC when its folk seem to have reverted to a nomadic lifestyle, and something similar was happening to other contemporary towns. So this huddle of mud-brick huts holds the secret of some great reversal in the tide of human affairs.

Similar tides drove the rise and fall of the Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians and Persians, all carving their monuments, temples and tombs. The great ancient builders were the Romans, especially their later eastern cousins the Byzantines, ruling from Byzantium / Constantinople.

The people we now call Turkic arrived here as nomads from central Asia in the 11th century, adopted a settled lifestyle, and united their tribes as the Seljuks. They fashioned a distinctive style of Islamic architecture, and their polity was called the Sultanate of Rum as they saw themselves as successors to Rome. The 15th century overthrow of Constantinople was at the hands of a warlike emirate further west, the Ottomans – these came to rule a ramshackle empire from the Balkans to Arabia and the Nile, but they largely ignored Anatolia as a provincial farmland and didn’t build much here. So Seljuk architecture survived.

The Ottomans were on the losing side in World War One and their empire and dynasty came crashing down. The military leader Mustafa Kemal, dubbed as Atatürk, gained power and moved the capital to Ankara to be more central and to make a break with the past. Over the next 15 years he drove a sweeping modernisation and secularisation of Turkey, until cigarettes and brandy did for him what the Anzacs at Gallipoli and the Greeks at Smyrna had failed to do. His mausoleum complex in Ankara is the size of a city district, but the entire country stands as his monument.

Ankara Esenboğa Airport (ESB ^IATA) has flights hourly from Istanbul (IST), frequently from Istanbul (SAW), and daily from Izmir, Adana and other major cities. Very few international flights so you change in Istanbul.

Konya (KYA ^IATA), Kayseri (ASR ^IATA) and Sivas (VAS ^IATA) have daily flights from Istanbul.

YHT high speed trains converge on Ankara from Istanbul via Eskişehir, from Karaman via Konya, and from Sivas. Conventional slow trains creak and groan overnight from Izmir, from Kars via Erzurum, from Tatvan (with connections from Tehran) and from Diyarbakır via Sivas. The line from Adana is disrupted by interminable track works. The line from Tbilisi was completed in 2017 but no passenger trains yet run on it.

Major highways are to motorway standard. From Istanbul O-7 (toll) courses west towards Bolu, where you join E89 for Ankara. O-21 continues south from Ankara towards Adana.

Every major town has a direct bus from Istanbul: these are not as fast as the YHT trains, but way faster and more comfortable than the conventional trains. Several bus lines compete so fares are inexpensive.

Eskişehir, Ankara, Konya, Kayseri, and Sivas are the main regional hubs for buses.

Most of the Turkish high speed rail network is within the region; Eskişehir, Ankara, Konya, Karaman, and Sivas are served by frequent services between each other.

• Ankara highlights include the ancient citadel, the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, and Anıtkabir the vast shrine to Kemal Atatürk.
• Seljuk-built monuments are found in several cities, particularly Konya, Kayseri, and Sivas. They have majestic portals and exquisite masonry.
• Cappadocia is a fantastical landscape where the soft rock has been naturally sculpted, and deliberately carved into dwellings. Above ground the best is around Göreme, but there are entire underground cities such as Kaymakli and Derinkuyu with little to see on the surface.
• Tuz Gölü means Salt Lake. It's in the very centre of Central Anatolia, between Ankara, Konya, and Aksaray. It's Turkey's second largest lake after Lake Van, but at most two metres deep.
• Karapınar Desert 100 km east of Konya is an expanse of dunes, checked by afforestation from engulfing Karapınar town.

• Ankara for cultural amusements such as theatre, concerts and opera. Konya has Dancing Dervish shows.
• Hamams are traditional Turkish baths, every town has them. In some areas the water is from geothermal hot springs, but mostly they have standard heating. In modern hotels they’re indistinguishable from spas.
• Winter sports: the snow is heavy but doesn’t last long. Mount Erciyes near Kayseri is the principal resort.
• Hiking is a good way to immerse yourself in the landscape, such as in Cappadocia or Phrygia.

Meat meat meat plus fish, all the trad Turkish / East Med dishes, and veggies may find few choices. And there’s a dearth of other cuisines, even in Ankara, so after a week of kebabs you might be gasping for spag bog or Chinese or anything else for variety. These pages therefore highlight such alternatives wherever they exist.

Tap water may not be safe to drink, or be heavily treated and unpalatable. Drink bottled water or sup tea.

There are hardly any free-standing bars, but cafes and restaurants often serve alcohol.

Wine is produced in the Kızılırmak valley east of Ankara, in Cappadocia, and in the west of the country. Turkey doesn’t have geographical denominations of wine.

All the cities and towns have hotels suitable for business and family travellers, some affiliated to international chains. They’re functional and mostly clean but often pong of cigarette smoke.

Atmospheric places to stay are converted Ottoman mansions (konağı), and old caravanserais and markets with rooms arranged around a courtyard.

In Cappadocia you really must stay in one of the cave hotels, where your main challenge is to find your way through the warren between room and reception. They’re comfy with all mod cons but you’ll awake next morning as if in an episode of The Flintstones, and expect to find Dino lazing on the sitting room carpet.

Yurts were the traditional dwellings of the Turkic people when as nomads they arrived in Anatolia. But in a little-noticed but equally epic migration, those yurts have now left to become glamping sites in the Scottish Highlands.

Road traffic is always the main hazard anywhere in Turkey – keep a tight grip on little ones along the sidewalks. Reckless driving is all too common, and driver fatigue is a hazard across the long monotonous steppes. That includes the oncoming truck drifting across the median towards you, so you need to be alert enough for both, and always drive defensively.

Safeguard valuables and stay clear of local politics and low-life, same as anywhere else.

Anatolia’s central position means it borders all the other regions of Turkey.

• Marmara is the region to the west. The big draw is Istanbul but other must-see places are Bursa the first city captured by the Ottomans, Iznik which gave its name to beautiful tiles and first codified the Christian religion, ancient Troy focus of a mythical war, and the all-too-real battle sites of Gallipoli.

• Aegean Turkey southwest is lined by beach resorts such as Bodrum. Ruined ancient cities include Pergamon and Ephesus, and Pamukkale is a cascade of white travertine pools.

• Mediterranean Turkey is likewise lined by beach resorts, with the biggest strip along the sandy coast east of Antalya. Ölüdeniz is the famous blue lagoon, and Demre was the home of the real Santa Claus. And yet more ruins, with the best at Side.

• Southeastern Anatolia to the east has been transformed by a huge irrigation project, which drowned several towns – Halfeti is a surreal half-submerged place. Excellent Roman mosaics were rescued and brought to Gaziantep, and Diyarbakır still shelters behind stout basalt walls. This region of Turkey was the worst affected by the 2023 earthquake.

• Black Sea Turkey to the north is backed by pine-clad mountains. Samsun and Trabzon are the major resorts but you don’t come here for beaches, more to explore the scenic valleys and climb the mountains with ancient monasteries clinging to their flanks.