Çatalhöyük, which existed approximately between 7500 BC and 5700 BC in the steppes east of Konya, was the first settlement ever found in the territory of what is Turkey today, and indeed it was one of the oldest spots with a sedentary lifestyle in all of the World.
The first major state that rose to power in Central Anatolia was the Kingdom of Hittites, an ancient Indo-European speaking nation and contemporary (and often at war) with Pharaonic Egypt. Hittites occupied most of Central Anatolia as well as large chunks of neighbouring regions, as far south as Syria.
Later in 10th century BC, Phrygians arrived from northwest, most likely from Thrace in southeast Balkan Peninsula, settling in the western reaches of the region. Phrygians had carved still-impressive open air temples on the sides of sacred mountains for their mother goddess Cybele.
Invaded consequently by Lydians from west and Persians from east, the region was then run over by the army of Alexander the Great on the way to India, who cut the famous Gordian Knot in Gordion, ruins of which now lie 60 km west of Ankara, near Polatlı.
Then came the Celts in 278 BC, who once occupied all across Europe from British Isles to Central Anatolia, and founded the Kingdom of Galatia in central northern parts of the region. They were defeated by Romans, who kept the name and administered the region as the Province of Galatia.
Central Anatolia, Cappadocia in particular, was one of the hideouts of often-oppressed early Christians, who established underground cities and hidden churches to avoid persecution. Byzantines kept the tradition of turning natural landscape of Cappadocia into a religious one, with gorgeously painted churches chipped into naturally-occuring "fairy chimneys".
After the Battle of Manzikert of 1071 which took place in Eastern Anatolia, Turkic tribes started to appear in Central Anatolia, which is indeed the region with the longest history of Turkic settlement in what is now Turkey, possibly due to the similarity of the region to their homeland in Central Asia in terms of geography and climate. Tribes united into Sultanate of Rum (Seljuqs), which had its heartland in the region.
After the demise of the Sultanate, the regional administration dissolved into a number of smaller emirates, out of which an outsider one, Ottomans, took over all others one by one. During most of the period of Ottoman Empire, which centred itself more on Marmara Region and Balkans, the region was seen as a backwater—which may explain the absence of large scale Ottoman monuments in the region—integrating with outside markets only in the late 19th century with the arrival of Berlin?Baghdad railway, one of the most ambitious projects of the age of colonialism.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Central Anatolia
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Central Anatolia - updated May 2024
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Central Anatolia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
