Eleven Turkish Places from Assos to Mardin, West to East

Assos on the Troad coast held the only good harbor along some 80 kilometers of shoreline. Its Doric temple of Athena, built around 530 BC, is the only Doric-order temple known in Asia Minor, and Aristotle founded an academy here in 348 BC.

Canakkale sits on the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. Mehmed II built its fortress of Kale-i Sultaniye in 1462, and the ceramics trade later gave the city its name, meaning Pottery Castle; it was the focal point of the Gallipoli Campaign.

Tekirdag lies on the north shore of the Sea of Marmara in East Thrace. Known in antiquity as Bisanthe or Rhaedestus and mentioned in Xenophon's Anabasis, it was called Rodoscuk under Ottoman rule and is known for raki and an annual June cherry festival.

Aydin commands the lower valley of the Buyuk Menderes River, the ancient Meander. The page records its earlier names Tralleis, Anthea, Euanthia and Antiochia, and 259,027 residents in 2022, with figs as the best known crop of the province.

Xanthos was the largest city in Lycia according to Strabo. Its defenders reportedly destroyed their own acropolis rather than surrender to the Persian general Harpagus around 540 BC, and the site, with the Nereid Monument, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Letoon in 1988.

Iznik occupies the site of ancient Nicaea, founded by Antigonus in 316 BC at the eastern end of Lake Iznik. Its ancient walls still ring the town, and the Ayasofya Mosque inside them stands on the site of the Second Council of Nicaea in AD 787.

Side stands on a small peninsula about a kilometer long on the Pamphylian coast, 78 kilometers from Antalya. It joins a modern resort town of 14,527 people with the ruins of one of the best known classical sites in Turkey.

Amasya lies in a narrow valley along the Yesilirmak River. Strabo was born here, kings of Pontus left rock tombs in the cliffs above the town, and restored Ottoman wooden Yaliboyu houses line the river.

Antakya stands on the site of Antioch, founded in the fourth century BC by the Seleucid Empire and later one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire. The Hatay Archaeology Museum holds the second largest collection of Roman mosaics in the world, and the earthquakes of 6 February 2023 heavily damaged the city.

Urfa was founded as Edessa by Seleucus I Nicator around 303 BC and became capital of the Crusader County of Edessa in 1098. Gobekli Tepe, 12 kilometers to the northeast and dated to the 10th millennium BC, is considered the oldest known temple.

Mardin rises on a rocky hill near the Tigris close to the Syrian border. It became capital of a branch of the Artuqid dynasty in 1103 and housed the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate from the 13th century until 1932.