Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia

Goreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, protects a volcanic landscape on the central Anatolian plateau in Turkey, between the towns of Nevsehir, Urgup and Avanos, where erosion has carved distinctive cone-shaped rock formations known as fairy chimneys. Many of these formations were hollowed out during the Middle Ages to create Christian churches, houses and entire underground cities, including the subterranean settlements of Kaymakli and Derinkuyu. The site holds rock-hewn churches decorated with frescoes dating from the sixth to twelfth centuries, along with hermitages and monasteries, reflecting one of the leading surviving examples of post-iconoclastic Byzantine art within a natural setting shaped over centuries by both erosion and human habitation.