Ankara

Ankara, formerly known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey and one of Anatolia’s most historically layered cities. Its settlement history extends back to the Bronze Age, beginning with the Hattians, followed by the Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, and later the Galatians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, and the Ottoman Empire. In antiquity, Ankara was a major regional center and the capital of Galatia, with surviving monuments such as the Temple of Augustus. The city underwent a decisive transformation in 1923, when it was declared the capital of the new Republic of Turkey and developed as a modern planned capital, representing an exceptional synthesis of ancient urban heritage and 20th-century modernist planning.

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