Central Anatolia

Central Anatolia is a broad, elevated plateau lying at the heart of Türkiye, ringed by mountains and marked by long, dry summers and cold winters. It is the country's agricultural heartland — vast wheat fields and vineyards stretch across the steppe — but also one of its most historically layered landscapes, where the geological and the human have shaped each other over thousands of years.

The landscape of Cappadocia

The most striking feature of the region is the area known as Cappadocia, where episodes of volcanic activity millions of years ago deposited thick layers of soft tuff across the plateau. Over time, wind and water eroded this rock into a maze of valleys, cones and ridgelines — formations often called fairy chimneys. But Cappadocia is not simply a natural wonder. Human beings have lived here since antiquity, carving dwellings, communal spaces and whole underground cities into the soft volcanic stone. The troglodyte villages, rock-cut churches and painted cave monasteries of Göreme Valley stand as one of the most sustained examples of human adaptation to landscape anywhere in the world.

Underground cities and ancient states

Deep beneath the surface of several Central Anatolian towns, extensive networks of tunnels and chambers extend many levels underground — chambers for storage, living quarters, churches and ventilation shafts, capable of sheltering entire populations. These underground cities were carved over centuries, likely from the Phrygian and Roman periods through to Byzantine times. Above ground, the Hittite capital of Hattusha — a short distance from modern Boğazkale — occupied a strategic ridge above the Marassantı River and remains one of the most significant Bronze Age sites in Anatolia, with its monumental city gates and cuneiform archive.

Lake Tuz and the Seljuk world

West of Cappadocia, the great salt lake that gives the region its Turkish name shrinks dramatically in summer, leaving a blinding white crust that has made the area one of the largest salt-production zones in the country. The regional capital of Konya carries a different layer of history: it was the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in the 12th and 13th centuries, and its high-domed Seljuk mosques, madrasas and the tomb of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad — the poet and Sufi master known as Rumi — give the city a spiritual weight that still draws visitors today. Across the plateau, the landscape invites slow, attentive travel: walking through the valleys at dawn when the light is low and pale, pausing in a village where the sound is mainly wind and birdsong.