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
Category
Typical visit duration
The public ferry to the Princes' Islands — Adalar, officially — nine islands in the Sea of Marmara off Istanbul's Asian shore, reachable by Şehir Hatları boat from several piers on both sides of the city.
Galata Kulesi
The Galata Tower is the Genoese watchtower on the hill across the Golden Horn, built in 1348 as the Christea Turris — the Tower of Christ — at the highest point of their walled colony.
Sardis is the excavated capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, on the outskirts of the modern village of Sart in the Salihli district of Manisa province, roughly 72 km from İzmir along the Ankara-İzmir corridor.
Efes
Ephesus is an extensive ancient city in western Türkiye, visited today as an archaeological site near Selçuk in İzmir Province. The city visible today was founded by Lysimachus, one of Alexander the Great’s generals, around 300 BC.
Sultanahmet Meydanı
The Hippodrome was where Constantinople did its politics.
Kapalı Çarşı
The Grand Bazaar is a covered city of shops that Mehmed II began building in the winter of 1455/56, within three years of taking Constantinople.
Dolmabahçe Sarayı
Dolmabahçe is what the Ottoman empire built when it decided to look European, and what that decision cost.
Yerebatan Sarnıcı
The Basilica Cistern is a sixth-century water store the size of a cathedral, under a street in Sultanahmet, built for Justinian I. Historical texts say 7,000 enslaved people built it.
Taksim Meydanı
Taksim Square is where modern Istanbul argues with itself. It is the head of İstiklal Avenue, the terminus of the metro, the hub of the municipal buses, and the place the country's politics spills into when it spills anywhere.
Kız Kulesi
The Maiden's Tower stands on an islet in the Bosphorus, 200 m off the Üsküdar shore, and it is the one Istanbul landmark you cannot walk to.
Kariye Camii
The Chora holds the best late Byzantine mosaic and fresco cycle anywhere, and it is a long way from the tram, which is why the people who go are the people who came for it.
Pergamon is the ancient hilltop site above Bergama in İzmir province, centred on the Acropolis and its monumental archaeological remains.
Halikarnas Mozolesi
The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is an archaeological museum in Bodrum, Muğla, presenting surviving remains of one of the ancient world’s most celebrated monumental tombs.
Aya İrini Kilisesi
Hagia Irene is the Byzantine church that was never made into a mosque, and it is the reason it still looks like a Byzantine church inside.
İstanbul Surları
The Theodosian walls kept Constantinople for a thousand years, and they are still standing across the city. They were built under Theodosius II, who reigned from 402 to 450.
Theodosius Dikilitaşı
Older than almost everything around it by two thousand years, the Obelisk of Theodosius is a piece of pharaonic Egypt standing in the middle of a Turkish square.
Yıldız Sarayı
Yıldız is the palace a frightened sultan built uphill.
A regular Şehir Hatları commuter ferry across the Bosphorus, the everyday version of the Long Bosphorus Tour: no sightseeing stop, no turnaround at Anadolu Kavağı, just a working boat moving Istanbul residents between the European and Asian shores on a…
Bozdoğan Su Kemeri
Bozdoğan Kemeri, the Aqueduct of Valens, is the surviving bridge of the water system that made a city of a million people possible on a peninsula with almost no rivers.
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.
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.
