Country guide
Türkiye is 783,562 km² across 81 provinces, most of it Anatolia in West Asia with East Thrace on the European side of the straits. It has three coasts to choose...
Photograph · Benh LIEU SONG · CC BY-SA 4.0
Reviewed by Elena Voss · Roavina Travel Editor
Türkiye is 783,562 km² across 81 provinces, most of it Anatolia in West Asia with East Thrace on the European side of the straits. It has three coasts to choose between — the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean to the west, the Mediterranean to the south — and an interior plateau that behaves like a different country in winter. Istanbul is the largest city and the economic centre, Ankara the capital and the second-largest, and the December 2025 population of 86,092,168 is weighted heavily to the west. A first trip is usually Istanbul and one coast; the plateau is the second trip.
Checked 2026-08-25
Every city catalogued in this country so far, ranked by how much there is to see.
Photograph · Ben Morlok · CC BY-SA 2.0
Photograph · Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · REHBER0770 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · Anonymous · CC0
Photograph · Dan Taylor · CC BY 2.0
Photograph · Dogaaunlu · CC BY-SA 4.0
Photograph · Egemenakgul · CC BY-SA 4.0
Ranked by importance — sitelinks, pageviews and heritage status, not editor preference.
738 places match
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Typical visit duration
Xanthos was the capital of ancient Lycia, and what survives of it stands on two hills above the plain of the Eşen Çayı, the river the Greeks called the Xanthos, in the village of Kınık in Antalya province.
Çemberlitaş Sütunu
A single shaft of Egyptian porphyry stands in the middle of Çemberlitaş Square on Divan Yolu, banded with iron and blackened along one side.
Fatih Camii
The Fatih Mosque is where Mehmed the Conqueror is buried, and it stands on the site of the Church of the Holy Apostles — the mausoleum of the Roman emperors, Constantine the Great among them.
Rumeli Hisarı is a fortress built to close a strait, and everything about it follows from that one job.
Alaşehir throws its festival at the one moment of the year when the whole district smells of drying fruit.
Anadolu Hisarı
Anadoluhisarı is a siege engine in stone, built sixty years before the siege it was meant for.
Kapadokya
Cappadocia is a volcanic landscape in central Anatolia, shaped by erosion into valleys, ridges and fairy chimneys. It is a regional setting rather than one enclosed attraction, with open-air valleys, ridgelines and viewpoints spread around Göreme, Uçhisar, Ürgüp and Avanos.
Şehzadebaşı Camii
The Şehzade is the mosque Süleyman the Magnificent built for a dead son, and it is where Sinan learned to build the ones that followed.
Beylerbeyi Sarayı
Beylerbeyi Palace is the Ottoman court's summer address on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, built for Sultan Abdulaziz between 1861 and 1865 by the architect Sarkis Balyan, with Hagop Balyan named alongside him.
Derinkuyu Yeraltı Şehri
Derinkuyu underground city is a subterranean settlement beneath Derinkuyu in Nevşehir Province, descending to approximately 85 metres below ground.
Yedikule Zindanları
Yedikule is a fortress built out of an older monument.
İstanbul Rum Ortodoks Patrikhanesi
The Ecumenical Patriarchate is the senior see of the Eastern Orthodox world, and it occupies a walled compound in Fener on the Golden Horn.
Letoon is a Lycian sacred centre near Kumluova in Seydikemer, Muğla. It served as the federal sanctuary of the Lycian League and as the cult centre of Xanthos, the nearby Lycian capital.
Aspendos is a ruined Pamphylian and Roman city standing on two low hills above the Eurymedon, the river now called the Köprüçay, in Belkıs Mahallesi in the Serik district of Antalya province.
Masumiyet Müzesi
A novel and a building made in parallel, and neither is quite the illustration of the other.
Çırağan Sarayı
Çırağan Palace is the last of the great Ottoman waterfront palaces, and the only one a visitor cannot walk into.
Gordion is an archaeological site and museum complex in Yassıhöyük, within Ankara Province’s Polatlı district. It preserves the setting of the Phrygian capital and combines indoor displays with monumental burial mounds and the Inner Castle Mound.
Tepemezarı
Thyatira is the ancient city underneath part of modern Akhisar, in Manisa province, and one of the seven churches addressed in the Book of Revelation.
Örme Dikilitaş
The Walled Obelisk, Örme Dikilitaş in Turkish and literally the masonry obelisk, stands 32 m tall on the spine of the old Hippodrome in what is now Sultanahmet Square, west of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
Rüstem Paşa Camii
Rüstem Pasha Mosque does not sit on the street.
Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi
The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum is housed in the Ibrahim Pasha Palace, a stone mansion of 1524 that belonged to Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha, the second grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent.
Tekfur Sarayı is the last Byzantine palace in Istanbul still standing to its full height, and it survives because it was never important enough to be worth demolishing.
Yılanlı Sütun
A battle trophy from 479 BC, standing in a hole in a square in Istanbul.
Milyon Taşı
What survives is a single weathered pillar fragment standing in a sunken plot beside the street, and it is the remnant of the Milion — the point from which the Eastern Roman Empire measured itself.
Spil Dağı
Mount Sipylus — Spil Dağı in Turkish — is the 1,513 m limestone massif standing immediately south of Manisa, the highest point on the city's skyline and the reason the city sits where it does.
Ten to fourteen days allows about four days in İstanbul and at least three around Antalya when coastal archaeology is included. Cappadocia needs its own regional stay, and a one-way coastal route is more workable than returning to the same city each night.
Türkiye's visa position varies by passport and purpose. Verify the rule through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, when eligible, use only the official e-Visa service rather than an intermediary.
İstanbul's two airports and Antalya are the principal gateways for this itinerary. Domestic flights cover long cross-country legs, coaches serve many city pairs, and high-speed rail is most useful on the İstanbul-Ankara axis rather than as a universal substitute.
April to May and September to October are broad choices for combining İstanbul with the Mediterranean coast. Cappadocia nights, inland heat, and Antalya's coastal conditions differ, so confirm weather for each overnight base.
Türkiye uses the Turkish lira (TRY). Keep lira available for smaller transport and market transactions even when cards are accepted, and review the displayed amount in TRY before agreeing to any card conversion.
Dial 112 for emergencies in Türkiye. Electricity is 230 V through Type C and F sockets; tap-water safety is not recorded here, so obtain current local advice at each stop.
