Travel and Tourism in Turkey

Istanbul: City Between Continents

Istanbul is one of those rare cities that exceeds every expectation and every cliché. Visitors who arrive braced for crowded tourist traps and overpriced tea find instead a living, breathing metropolis of extraordinary energy — a city where the call to prayer echoes from a thousand minarets at dawn, where the ferries on the Bosphorus carry workers from Asia to Europe every morning and back again every evening, where Byzantine mosaics share wall space with Ottoman calligraphy and twenty-first-century street art. The city contains more layers of history per square kilometer than almost anywhere else on earth, and it wears those layers not as museum pieces but as living fabric.

The city was founded by Greek colonists as Byzantium around 657 BCE, and its position at the meeting of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara made it immediately valuable. When the Emperor Constantine I chose it as the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 CE, renaming it Constantinople — the City of Constantine — he was recognizing a geographic logic that had been apparent for a thousand years. For over a thousand years the city was the capital of the Byzantine Empire and the largest, wealthiest city in the Christian world. Its fall to Mehmed II in 1453 marked the end of the Byzantine era and the beginning of the Ottoman one, but the city's importance only grew. Under the Ottomans it became Istanbul — the name derives from a Greek phrase meaning "to the city" or "in the city" — and remained the heart of a vast empire until the republic moved the capital to Ankara in 1923.

The Hagia Sophia, rising at the apex of the historic peninsula with its great dome and four minarets, is Istanbul's defining monument and one of the most extraordinary buildings in human history. The current structure was built between 532 and 537 CE under Emperor Justinian I, whose court mathematician Isidore of Miletus and architect Anthemius of Tralles solved one of the most difficult engineering problems of the ancient world: how to place a circular dome on a square base. Their solution — using pendentives, curved triangular sections that transition from the square to the circle — was so innovative that it changed the history of architecture. The dome, 31 meters in diameter and rising 55 meters above the floor, appears to float above the space, its base pierced by a ring of windows that flood the interior with golden light. When the structure was completed, Justinian reportedly declared: Solomon, I have surpassed you.

For nine hundred years the Hagia Sophia was the largest cathedral in the world. When Mehmed II entered Constantinople in 1453, he rode to the Hagia Sophia first, performed a prayer there, and ordered its conversion into a mosque. The minarets were added over subsequent decades, the Christian mosaics were plastered over or obscured, and the building served as the chief mosque of the Ottoman Empire for nearly five centuries. In 1934 Atatürk converted it to a secular museum, allowing its Byzantine mosaics to be uncovered and studied. In 2020 the Turkish government reconverted it to a mosque, a decision that drew criticism from UNESCO, the World Council of Churches, and numerous governments, though the building remains open to non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times. The surviving Byzantine mosaics — including the profound Deësis mosaic showing Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist in the upper gallery, widely considered one of the finest works of Byzantine art — can still be viewed, their golden tessera glowing in the diffused light.

Just steps from the Hagia Sophia stands the Blue Mosque — the Sultan Ahmed Mosque — built between 1609 and 1616 under Sultan Ahmed I. The mosque is unique among Istanbul's imperial mosques in having six minarets rather than the usual four, a distinction that caused controversy at the time of its construction because the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca was the only other mosque with six minarets. The mosque takes its popular name from the more than twenty thousand Iznik tiles covering its interior, predominantly in deep blues and turquoises, that create an atmosphere of extraordinary ethereal beauty. Unlike the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque remains an active mosque open for worship, and the rhythms of daily prayer — the calls to prayer, the crowds of worshippers gathering, the silence that falls over Sultanahmet Square at prayer time — give visitors a sense of the building's living purpose.

Topkapi Palace, perched on the tip of the historic peninsula above the confluence of the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara, served as the administrative heart of the Ottoman Empire and the residence of its sultans for nearly four centuries, from its construction under Mehmed II beginning in 1478 until Sultan Abdülmecid moved the court to the new Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856. The palace is not a single building but a vast complex of pavilions, gardens, throne rooms, kitchens, and residential quarters arranged around a series of courtyards. The Third Courtyard contains the Imperial Audience Chamber and the apartments that housed the sacred relics of Islam: the cloak and sword of the Prophet Muhammad, the staffs of Moses and Abraham, the sword of David, and a tooth of the Prophet. The Harem, an entirely separate world of some 400 rooms housing the sultan's wives, concubines, and children, guarded by eunuchs and governed by the Queen Mother, is one of the palace's most visited and most misunderstood spaces — a complex institution as much about politics and dynastic management as about sexuality. The Imperial Treasury displays the dazzling wealth of the empire, including the Topkapi Dagger (encrusted with emeralds and other gems), the Spoonmaker's Diamond (an 86-carat pear-shaped diamond surrounded by 49 smaller diamonds, one of the largest in the world), and a wealth of jade, rock crystal, and precious metalwork.

The Grand Bazaar — Kapal? Çar??, the Covered Market — is one of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world. Established under Mehmed II shortly after the conquest of Constantinople, with a core structure built in 1461 and expanded over subsequent centuries, it now covers an area of roughly 30,000 square meters, contains more than 60 streets and 4,000 shops, employs an estimated 26,000 workers, and receives up to 400,000 visitors per day. Walking through the Grand Bazaar is an experience unlike any other in modern retail: the light filtering through the arched and painted ceilings, the corridors specializing in jewelry, ceramics, carpets, leather goods, spices, or textiles, the perpetual negotiation between vendors and customers, the tiny cafes tucked among the stalls serving çay and Turkish coffee. The Spice Bazaar (M?s?r Çar??s?), built in the 1660s near the Golden Horn, is smaller and more focused, its stalls stacked with pyramids of spices, dried fruits, nuts, Turkish delight, cheese, honey, and every variety of herbal tea.

The Bosphorus strait, barely 700 meters wide at its narrowest, divides Istanbul's European and Asian halves. Crossing it by ferry is one of the great daily experiences of urban life: the wide water, the tankers moving slowly through to or from the Black Sea, the European and Asian shores with their mosques and palaces and hills and apartment blocks, the seagulls wheeling overhead. Longer Bosphorus boat tours, easily arranged at the Eminönü or Be?ikta? ferry docks, take visitors north up the strait past wooden waterfront mansions (yal?), the fifteenth-century fortresses of Rumelihisar? and Anadoluhisar? built by Mehmed II to control the strait before his conquest of Constantinople, and eventually to the village of Anadolu Kava?? at the Black Sea mouth. The Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Saray? — the Sunken Palace) is one of Istanbul's most atmospheric sites: a vast underground Byzantine water-storage cistern built under Justinian in the sixth century, with a forest of 336 marble columns rising from dark water, illuminated by soft light that casts reflections on the water's surface. Two of the columns rest on Medusa-head bases, placed sideways or inverted, possibly to neutralize the mythological power of Medusa's gaze. The cistern was capable of holding 80,000 cubic meters of water.

The Galata Tower, a Genoese watchtower built in 1348, rises above the Galata neighborhood, offering views across the Golden Horn to Sultanahmet and out over the Bosphorus. The pedestrian ?stiklal Avenue stretching north from Galata is Istanbul's entertainment and cultural heart, with hundreds of restaurants, bars, music venues, galleries, and independent bookshops leading to Taksim Square. The Pera Palace Hotel, built in 1892 to accommodate passengers arriving on the Orient Express, still operates as a luxury hotel and a museum of its own past; Agatha Christie reportedly wrote part of Murder on the Orient Express there.

The Asian side of Istanbul, accessible by ferry from Eminönü or Karaköy, offers a different pace and character. Kad?köy, with its excellent fish market, vibrant cafe culture, bohemian bookshops, and weekly farmers' market, is a favorite destination for Istanbul residents seeking relief from the tourist intensity of the European side. Üsküdar, just north of the ferry terminal, is one of the more conservative and traditional neighborhoods, with beautiful Ottoman mosques. The Maiden's Tower (K?z Kulesi), a small tower on a tiny island just offshore from Üsküdar, is one of Istanbul's iconic landmarks — associated in legend with a princess secluded there to protect her from a prophecy of death by snakebite, whose fate arrived anyway via a serpent hidden in a basket of fruit.

Dolmabahçe Palace, built in 1853 on the European Bosphorus shore, replaced Topkapi as the Ottoman sultans' residence and reflects the empire's nineteenth-century turn toward European architecture and style. Its white limestone and marble facade, 600 meters long, stretches along the Bosphorus waterfront in Baroque and Neoclassical grandeur. The interior is even more overwhelming: a crystal staircase, a chandelier weighing 4.5 tonnes given by Queen Victoria, reception rooms of theatrical lavishness. It was here, in a bedroom on the upper floor, that Atatürk died on November 10, 1938, at 9:05 AM — all the clocks in the palace are stopped at that moment, and they remain stopped to this day.

Outdoor Activities and Nature

Turkey offers an exceptional range of outdoor and nature-based activities, from the flat-water sailing and diving of the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts to serious high-altitude mountaineering in the east, from bird-watching in the wetlands to skiing on the volcanic slopes of Mount Erciyes.

The Lycian Way, opened in 1999 as Turkey's first long-distance waymarked hiking trail, stretches approximately 540 kilometers along the Mediterranean coast of ancient Lycia, from Fethiye in the west to Antalya in the east. Passing through remote coves, over limestone headlands, through ancient Lycian cities, past shepherds' villages and olive orchards, the trail is consistently spectacular — one of the finest long-distance coastal walks in the world. Sections can be walked independently; the full route typically takes three to four weeks. The best walking seasons are spring (April–May) and autumn (October–November); summer heat on south-facing coastal sections can be severe. The trail passes directly through or near sites including Patara (a long, unspoiled beach that is also a nesting ground for loggerhead turtles), Letoon (the sacred sanctuary of Lycia, UNESCO World Heritage), Xanthos (the capital of the Lycian League, UNESCO), Olympos, and dozens of smaller Lycian ruins.

White-water rafting on the Dalaman River in the Mu?la province and on the Köprülü Canyon near Antalya (the Köprüçay River, flowing through a dramatic limestone gorge with a remarkably well-preserved Roman bridge crossing it) are among the most popular adventure activities on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. The Köprülü Canyon run, navigating class III–IV rapids through the canyon, is accessible to non-experts with a guiding company and takes approximately three hours. The canyon walls rise to over 400 meters in places, and Roman aqueducts, Seljuk bridges, and wild orchids are visible along the route.

Skiing in Turkey is more developed than most foreign visitors expect. Mount Erciyes, the dormant volcano rising to 3,917 meters above Kayseri near Cappadocia, has been developed into a modern ski resort with 30 kilometers of pisted runs served by modern lift systems. The resort offers both beginner terrain and challenging steeper runs, with views of the Cappadocian valleys visible from the upper slopes on clear days. Uluda?, near Bursa, is the most accessible ski resort from Istanbul; Palandöken near Erzurum in eastern Turkey has some of the best snow conditions in the country.

Birdwatching in Turkey is rewarding along virtually the entire country, but several sites attract specialist birdwatchers from around the world. The Göksu Delta near Silifke on the Mediterranean coast is one of Turkey's most important wetland systems, hosting breeding colonies of herons and egrets, large numbers of wintering and migrating waterfowl, and the globally threatened Dalmatian Pelican. The Bosphorus strait at Istanbul is one of the world's great raptor migration bottlenecks, with hundreds of thousands of raptors including honey buzzards, black kites, white storks, and several eagle species funneling through in August–September and March–April. Diving along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts offers clear water, ancient amphorae, and diverse marine life. The area around Ka? and Kekova is particularly popular for wreck diving and for exploring the shallow Lycian ruins visible underwater.

Twenty-Two UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Turkey's twenty-two UNESCO World Heritage Sites reflect the extraordinary density and diversity of significant human history that has accumulated in Anatolia and European Thrace over more than ten millennia. From the world's oldest monumental religious structures to the greatest flowering of Byzantine and Ottoman architecture, from the complete preservation of a Roman spa city to the rock-carved churches of a medieval Christian community living inside volcanic formations, these sites represent some of the most significant human achievements ever inscribed on the UNESCO list. Turkey has been consistently active in nominating new sites — the 2025 inscription of Sardis and the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe brought the total to twenty-two — and has many more candidates on its tentative list.

Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia (1985) was among Turkey's first UNESCO inscriptions, recognizing the unique geological and cultural landscape of the Nev?ehir province. The fairy chimneys — tall conical volcanic tuff formations capped with harder basalt — create a landscape unlike any other on earth, and the Byzantine rock-cut churches of the Göreme valley, with their surviving fresco cycles, represent an extraordinary survival of medieval Christian art and religious practice.

Historic Areas of Istanbul (1985) encompasses four separate zones of the historic city, together representing the most complete surviving concentration of Byzantine and Ottoman architecture in the world: the Archaeological Park of Sultanahmet (containing the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, the Basilica Cistern, and numerous Byzantine structures), Süleymaniye Mosque and its surrounding neighborhood, the historic Zeyrek district with the Byzantine church of the Pantokrator, and the Theodosian Walls. The site recognizes Istanbul's unparalleled importance as the capital successively of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman empires.

The Great Mosque and Hospital of Divri?i (1985), located in the remote town of Divri?i in the Sivas province of eastern Turkey, is the least-visited of Turkey's World Heritage Sites but arguably one of the most astonishing. Built in 1228–1229 CE by the Mengujekid ruler Ahmet Shah, the complex consists of a mosque and an adjacent medical hospital (darü??ifa) whose entrance portals are decorated with stone carving of such extravagant complexity and originality that they have no parallel in Islamic architecture. The three portals are covered in a profusion of interlacing geometric patterns, floral arabesques, and figurative elements that combine Anatolian Seljuk, Persian, and possibly Byzantine influences in a way that is entirely unique.

Hattusha: the Hittite Capital (1986) preserves the ruins of the capital of the Hittite Empire near modern Bo?azkale in the Çorum province. The site encompasses the great citadel of Büyükkale, the Lion Gate, the Sphinx Gate, the Yerkap? earthwork with its 70-meter underground tunnel, and the open-air rock sanctuary of Yaz?l?kaya with its two galleries of carved divine processions — one showing the sixty-three gods of the Hittite pantheon marching in profile, the other containing remarkable individual carved deities. The sheer scale and ambition of the Hittite capital gives a visceral sense of a great Bronze Age empire at its height.

Nemrut Da? (1987) protects the summit of Mount Nemrut in southeastern Turkey and the extraordinary funerary monument built there by King Antiochus I of Commagene between approximately 70 and 38 BCE: two terraces flanking a colossal tumulus, each lined with colossal stone statues of gods and the king himself, their heads toppled by centuries of earthquakes. The site is particularly dramatic at sunrise and sunset, when the colors of the sky transform the stone heads and the mountain landscape.

Hierapolis-Pamukkale (1988) jointly protects the extraordinary travertine terraces of Pamukkale — white calcium carbonate cascades fed by thermal springs that have been flowing for millennia — and the Roman-Hellenistic spa city of Hierapolis built above them. The sacred thermal pool, the vast necropolis, the well-preserved theatre, and the overall legibility of the ancient city's plan make Hierapolis one of the most complete ancient spa sites in the world, while the travertine terraces below provide one of Turkey's most spectacular natural landscapes.

Xanthos-Letoon (1988) protects the two most important sites of ancient Lycia: Xanthos, the political capital of the Lycian League (a federal democratic system that influenced the framers of the American Constitution), and Letoon, the sacred sanctuary of the Lycian goddess Leto and her children Apollo and Artemis, where official inscriptions in three languages — Lycian, Greek, and Aramaic — were found that helped scholars decipher the previously unknown Lycian language. Xanthos was the site of two extraordinary acts of collective self-destruction, recorded by Herodotus, in which Xanthian citizens burned their city and killed their own families rather than submit to besieging armies.

The City of Safranbolu (1994) is a perfectly preserved Ottoman provincial town in the Karabük province of northern Turkey, its dense concentration of traditional timber-frame houses (konaks) with overhanging upper stories, hans, hammams, and mosques representing the best-preserved example of Ottoman vernacular urban architecture in Turkey. Safranbolu was a significant trading center on the caravan route between Istanbul and the east, prosperous enough in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to build with ambition and quality.

The Archaeological Site of Troy (1998) protects the excavated remains of the city at Hisarlik on the northwestern Aegean coast, where nine successive settlements were built between approximately 3000 BCE and 500 CE. The site is associated with the Trojan War of Homeric legend. The scale of the site, the complexity of the overlapping settlement layers, the famous Schliemann Trench, and the broader landscape of the Troad all contribute to one of Turkey's most evocative historical experiences.

Çatalhöyük Neolithic Site (2012) preserves one of the world's first and most complete examples of a Neolithic town, occupied from approximately 7500 to 5700 BCE on the Konya Plain of central Anatolia. The site reveals house plans, burial practices, art, and social organization of extraordinary complexity for its period, including what may be the first known painted landscape in human history. The on-site museum and the protective shelters over the active excavation areas allow visitors to see the excavations in progress.

Bursa and Cumal?k?z?k: the Birth of the Ottoman Empire (2014) recognizes the early Ottoman capital of Bursa — with its royal mosque complexes (the Green Mosque, the Ulu Cami, the mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans), hans, and bazaars — and the nearby village of Cumal?k?z?k, one of seven villages founded to supply the Ottoman capital in the fourteenth century, whose medieval Ottoman domestic architecture has survived largely intact. Bursa was the first major Ottoman city, and its monuments represent the earliest expression of what would become the Ottoman architectural tradition.

Pergamon and its Multi-Layered Cultural Landscape (2014) encompasses the dramatic acropolis city of ancient Pergamon with its Hellenistic and Roman monuments — the steeply raked theatre, the Temple of Trajan, the remains of the famous Library — as well as the Asclepion healing center below the hill and the wider cultural landscape of the Bak?r River valley. The multi-layered concept acknowledges that the significance of the site extends beyond any single period, from prehistoric settlement through Hellenistic greatness to Byzantine and Ottoman inheritance.

Ephesus (2015) inscribes the complete archaeological site of ancient Ephesus — its Terrace Houses, Library of Celsus, Great Theatre, Marble Road, agora, and the broader landscape of the ancient city — in recognition of its exceptional value as a record of Graeco-Roman urban planning and architecture, its connections to early Christianity, and its 1,500 years of continuous settlement.

Diyarbak?r Fortress and Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape (2015) protects the magnificent basalt walls of the ancient city of Diyarbak?r in southeastern Turkey — among the best-preserved ancient city walls in the world, stretching nearly 5.5 kilometers around the historic center — along with the Hevsel Gardens, a continuous agricultural landscape on the banks of the Tigris River that has been cultivated for at least ten thousand years.

Ani Archaeological Site (2016) preserves the ruins of the medieval Armenian capital of Ani, a city that at its peak in the early eleventh century CE had a population of perhaps 100,000 — larger than Paris or London at the time — and produced architectural monuments of exceptional quality, including the Cathedral of Ani (completed 1010 CE), the Church of the Redeemer, and the imposing city walls. Located on the Turkish side of the border with Armenia, Ani stands in desolate but extraordinary grandeur on a high plateau above the Akhurian River gorge.

Aphrodisias (2017) inscribes the Roman city dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite in the Ayd?n province, celebrated in antiquity for its marble quarries and its school of sculptors whose work was distributed across the Roman Empire. The site includes one of the best-preserved ancient stadiums in the world, a temple, a theatre, the Sebasteion (a monument to the cult of the Roman emperors with extraordinary relief panels), and the superb on-site museum.

Göbekli Tepe (2018) protects the Neolithic religious complex near ?anl?urfa, the world's oldest known monumental architecture, whose T-shaped limestone pillars decorated with animal carvings were erected by hunter-gatherers approximately 11,600 years ago, millennia before the invention of agriculture, pottery, or writing. The inscription recognized Göbekli Tepe as a site of outstanding universal value that fundamentally changes our understanding of the cognitive and social capacities of prehistoric human beings.

Arslantepe Mound (2021) near Malatya in eastern Turkey is one of the most significant prehistoric sites in the Near East: a stratified tell (artificial mound) with occupation layers spanning from the fifth millennium BCE through the Iron Age, whose fourth-millennium layers have revealed one of the world's earliest palace complexes, the earliest known collection of metal swords, evidence for early writing, and remains that illuminate the transition from chiefdom to state-level organization. The site takes its name (Lion Mound) from the Neo-Hittite lion sculptures found there.

Sardis and the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe (2025), Turkey's most recently inscribed World Heritage Site, protects the ancient capital of the Lydian Kingdom near modern Manisa and the extraordinary necropolis of Bin Tepe (Thousand Hills) — a landscape of more than one hundred large burial tumuli of Lydian kings and nobles, including the massive tumulus of King Alyattes, the largest funerary mound in Anatolia. Sardis was one of the great cities of the ancient world, the capital of the kingdom that invented coinage, and subsequently a major city of the Persian Empire, the Hellenistic Seleucid Kingdom, and the Roman Province of Asia. The city's gymnasium-bath complex and the Temple of Artemis, one of the largest ancient temples in the world, anchor a site of continuous significance from the seventh century BCE onward.

Beyond these inscribed sites, Turkey's Tentative List for UNESCO inscription includes approximately 80 additional candidate sites, representing an even fuller picture of the country's extraordinary heritage density. Among the most anticipated potential future inscriptions are Catalhöyük's expanded landscape zone, the Ottoman architectural heritage of Edirne centered on the Selimiye Mosque, the Gordion archaeological site of the ancient Phrygian capital, and the remarkable Hittite landscapes of south-central Anatolia.