Valleys and canyons of Turkey
Valleys & Canyons: 54 places from 40 provinces of Turkey. Each has a model-like miniature, a short story and a Numa Made ring on the Isometric Turkey map.
Cappadocia
Why would a land be called “the land of beautiful horses”? The name Cappadocia is said to come from the Old Persian “Katpatuka”, a word meaning “land of beautiful horses”. Linguists are not…
See on the map →Termal
Imagine water that has flowed through a valley at the same temperature for centuries. Emperors have come and gone, palaces have fallen, languages have changed; yet the water has kept on…
See on the map →Osmaneli & Sakarya Valley
Can a town give its name to a city’s gate? In the walls of İznik, the gate facing east is called the Lefke Gate; because the road leading out of it went to the valley carved by the Sakarya…
See on the map →Butterfly Valley & Kabak
One night the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi dreams he is a butterfly; he flits from flower to flower, knowing nothing but the lightness of his wings. When he wakes, he is confused: is he…
See on the map →Saklıkent Canyon
Saklamak: to hide… You hide a thing so it won’t be lost, so no one sees it, or so that only one who truly seeks it will find it. Perhaps it was the third that gave Saklıkent, the “hidden…
See on the map →Ulubey Canyon
“Water flows and finds its bed,” our ancestors say. In Ulubey, though, the water was not content just to find its bed; it dug it hundreds of meters deep… Over millions of years the Banaz…
See on the map →Phrygian Valley
Afyonkarahisar · Valleys & Canyons
How do you make a rock speak? The Phrygians found the answer long before we did: by hollowing it, chiseling it, working a door, an eye, a prayer into its face… Those who walk the valleys…
See on the map →Köprülü Canyon
How long can a bridge serve? Today engineers answer with calculations and century-long lifespans. Yet deep in the Taurus there is a bridge that has done its job without fail for nearly two…
See on the map →Yazılı Canyon
The Stoic philosopher Epictetus said: “Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them.” So if a philosopher’s words are carved into the rocks of a canyon, does…
See on the map →İnsuyu Cave
What are we looking for when we step into a cave? Coolness, the mystery of the dark, or simply our own curiosity? In a cave south of Burdur, though, something entirely different awaits you…
See on the map →Gülek Pass & Karboğazı
“The Avşar clans rose and moved on, / Those slow-moving clans are ours, / Arab horses make the far near, / The roads over the high mountains are ours,” sings Dadaloğlu. So which is the…
See on the map →Kapıkaya Canyon
“Nothing in the world is softer or weaker than water, yet for attacking the hard and the strong, nothing can surpass it,” says Lao Tzu in the ‘Tao Te Ching’. Those who want proof of these…
See on the map →Harbiye Waterfalls
In the ‘Metamorphoses’, Ovid tells how Daphne, fleeing from Apollo, is turned into a laurel tree as she runs. Robbed of hope, Apollo embraces the tree and says, “Since you cannot be my…
See on the map →Nallıhan Colorful Hills
If a painter tipped his palette over a mountainside, what kind of landscape would appear? White beside red, green beside white, yellow beneath green… You can find the answer in Nallıhan, on…
See on the map →Ermenek
How does a town hang on to a rock? Do the houses cling to the slope, or does the slope hold up the houses? Deep in the Taurus, at the foot of a sheer cliff, Ermenek has been answering this…
See on the map →Ihlara Valley
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here…” In the ‘Divine Comedy’, Dante reads these words at the gate of Hell. Yet centuries before Dante, a hell had already been painted on the wall of a…
See on the map →Ürgüp & Üç Güzeller
Have you ever climbed a hill to make a wish? The hill rising in the middle of Ürgüp is named for just that: Temenni, “wish”… Climb it — it can be seen from nearly every corner of town — and…
See on the map →Uçhisar Castle
Of unreachable places we say “no bird flies there, no caravan passes”… In Uçhisar things are a little different; here birds not only fly but settle, and in homes carefully carved just for…
See on the map →Avanos & Kızılırmak
How many thousands of years of memory can a handful of clay hold? Step into a pottery workshop in Avanos and watch the master at his foot-turned wheel, and you will see the answer in the…
See on the map →Zelve & Paşabağı
Saint Simeon, who lived in Syria in the fifth century, chose an unusual way to withdraw from the world: he climbed to the top of a pillar and spent more than thirty years of his life there…
See on the map →Soğanlı Valley
Can a valley really be named after onions — soğan in Turkish? One tale told of Soğanlı Valley, at the quiet edge of Cappadocia, says the name has nothing to do with onions: during the Arab…
See on the map →Kapuzbaşı Waterfalls
What do we say of someone very resourceful? “They could draw water from a stone.” Said of those who make the impossible possible, this phrase stops being an idiom in Kayseri’s Yahyalı…
See on the map →Kazankaya Canyon
Imagine walking across the flat plains of the steppe when the ground suddenly drops away beneath your feet… That is exactly what happens to those who reach the edge of the deep gorge that…
See on the map →Güzeldere Waterfall
Some places are discovered by ear before they are seen. Walking through the forests south of Düzce, when you hear that deep roar rising among the trees, you understand before you have seen…
See on the map →Ulukaya Waterfall
A sculptor shapes stone with chisel, hammer and years of patience. But how does a stream with no tools at all shape a whole mountain? Those curious for the answer should head deep into the…
See on the map →Tokatlı Canyon & İncekaya
How do you carry water across a canyon? Byzantine builders asked this question centuries ago and answered it with stone arches. The İncekaya Aqueduct, standing over the deep cleft of…
See on the map →Valla Canyon
What measures the depth of a canyon? Meters, or how few dare to enter it? For Valla Canyon, the second measure may be the truer one; for this wild corner of the Küre Mountains is known as…
See on the map →Erfelek Tatlıca Waterfalls
One waterfall is beautiful, two even more so; but what about twenty-eight? South of Sinop, near the village of Tatlıca in Erfelek, the waterfalls formed by a stream stepping down through…
See on the map →Şahinkaya Canyon
Can a town take its name from a vizier? That is exactly how Vezirköprü’s name was born. Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, the grand vizier who pulled the shaken Ottoman state back together in the 17th…
See on the map →Ballıca Cave
In the ‘Republic’, Plato describes people condemned to stare at the wall of a cave all their lives. Taking for real the shadows cast on the wall by the fire burning behind them, these…
See on the map →İncesu Canyon
One of Anatolia’s oldest goddesses is Cybele, the Mother Goddess of fertility, nature and the mountains… Her name clings to mountains, rocks and springs all over Anatolia. Her statues and…
See on the map →Fırtına Valley & Zilkale
Why would a stream be named “Fırtına,” the storm? You need only stand once on its bank after the spring rains and listen. Fed by the snows of the Kaçkars, the water races along the valley…
See on the map →Hatila Valley
How do you measure the depth of a valley? In meters, or by how much the sky narrows when you raise your head? In Hatila Valley, which begins right on Artvin’s doorstep, the second measure…
See on the map →Yusufeli & Barhal
Can a town move? Imagine an entire town, with its houses, gardens, market and bridges, migrating from the valley floor up the slope… Though it sounds like a fairy tale, in Yusufeli this…
See on the map →Kamilet Valley & Mençuna
“May you be as cherished as water,” we say when water is offered. On the Black Sea coast this blessing rings truer perhaps than anywhere, for here water is everywhere: in the rain, the…
See on the map →Ardanuç & Cehennem Creek
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” These words over the gate of Dante’s ‘Inferno’ come unbidden to mind when you first hear the name of a certain canyon. Cehennem Deresi, Hell’s Creek…
See on the map →Karaca Cave
Asked the color of darkness, most of us would answer “black” without hesitation. Yet those who enter a cave in the mountains of Gümüşhane abandon that answer when they find a thousand and…
See on the map →Tomara Waterfall
How long does a snowflake’s journey last? We imagine that the small white flake that lands on a mountaintop in winter simply melts and vanishes when spring comes. Yet sometimes it travels…
See on the map →Narman Fairy Chimneys
What would a sculptor carve with wind in place of a chisel and rain in place of a hammer? And what if, so as not to rush, they were given not one but thousands of years? North of Erzurum…
See on the map →Kemaliye & Karanlık Canyon
If a road takes one hundred and thirty-two years to finish, who can we say built it? The one who swung the first pickaxe, the one who lifted the last stone, or all the generations in…
See on the map →Girlevik Waterfall
Does water sleep too? Those who see the rocks of Girlevik in winter, in Erzincan’s Çağlayan valley, answer “yes” without hesitation. For, true to its valley’s name (çağlayan means cascade)…
See on the map →Munzur Valley
In some places water is not only drunk; it is greeted, prayed to, and candles are lit in its name… The Munzur River, flowing between the mountains of Tunceli, is such a water. So what makes…
See on the map →Ovacık & Munzur Springs
How long can a mountain keep a shepherd’s secret? Standing by the springs that well up at the foot of the Munzur Mountains near Ovacık, you begin to search for the answer in the sound of…
See on the map →Karaleylek Canyon
Could there be a canyon that hardly anyone noticed for centuries? And right in the middle of one of the world’s most ancient rivers, the Euphrates, no less… The story of Karaleylek Canyon…
See on the map →Levent Valley
Can you imagine a valley holding its silence for kilometers on end? In Malatya’s Akçadağ district, opening suddenly in the middle of the steppe, Levent Valley is the name of just such a…
See on the map →Darende & Tohma Canyon
On the day the Grand Mosque of Bursa opened, it is said, Sultan Yıldırım Bayezid asked Emir Sultan to deliver the first sermon; Emir Sultan, however, pointed to a baker in the congregation…
See on the map →Kağızman & Aras Valley
Who first drew a picture on stone? That nameless hand that first carved the horns of a wild goat into a rock face, what was it trying to say: a hunt, a prayer, or simply “I was here too”?…
See on the map →Posof
Does a valley know which country it belongs to? Looking at the forested slopes of Posof, you can’t help wondering. Beyond the border gate at Türkgözü, Georgia begins; but the trees, the…
See on the map →Muradiye Waterfall
What does a stream do when a pitch-black step of stone appears in its path? Stop and wait, turn back, or throw itself into the void? At Muradiye Waterfall north of Van, the Bendimahi River…
See on the map →Zap Valley & Çukurca
How many countries’ histories can a river carry? The Great Zap rises in the mountains of Hakkari, carves deep valleys on its way south, and joins the Tigris on Iraqi soil. In every bend…
See on the map →Halfeti
Have you ever imagined that a rose could be black? The karagül, the black rose that blooms in Halfeti, is actually born with deep red petals; but in the summer sun it takes on such a dark…
See on the map →Birecik
Can you imagine a journey on which birds show people the way? According to a belief told in Birecik, each year when migration time came, the bald ibises would show pilgrims the road to…
See on the map →Eğil & Dicle Dam
Diyarbakır · Valleys & Canyons
Imagine a crag: on its face, the relief of an Assyrian king; at its foot, tombs dedicated to prophets; and below, the Tigris, which once roared along and has now become a lake… Eğil, north…
See on the map →Botan Valley
Some two thousand four hundred years ago, an army of Greek mercenaries set out on a grueling journey home from Mesopotamia toward the Black Sea. Xenophon, who recounted this journey in his…
See on the map →
Provinces with this kind of place
- Adana1 place
- Afyonkarahisar1 place
- Aksaray1 place
- Ankara1 place
- Antalya1 place
- Ardahan1 place
- Artvin4 places
- Bartın1 place
- Bilecik1 place
- Burdur1 place
- Çorum1 place
- Diyarbakır1 place
- Düzce1 place
- Elazığ1 place
- Erzincan2 places
- Erzurum1 place
- Gümüşhane2 places
- Hakkari1 place
- Hatay1 place
- Isparta1 place
- Karabük1 place
- Karaman1 place
- Kars1 place
- Kastamonu1 place
- Kayseri2 places
- Malatya2 places
- Mersin1 place
- Muğla2 places
- Nevşehir5 places
- Rize1 place
- Samsun1 place
- Siirt1 place
- Sinop1 place
- Şanlıurfa2 places
- Tokat1 place
- Tunceli2 places
- Uşak1 place
- Van1 place
- Yalova1 place
- Yozgat1 place