Ankara

The city of Ankara lies in the center of Anatolia on the eastern edge of the great, high Anatolian Plateau. Ankara is situated on a fertile wheat steppe-land with forested areas in its northeast region at an altitude of 850 meters. Following Istanbul, Ankara is Turkey’s second largest city with a population exceeding 3 million people.

As a capital of the country, Ankara is an extremely important commercial and industrial center. Contemporary Ankara is actually a combination of two cities, a double identity that is due to the quick rate at which it has developed since being declared capital of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Until then Ankara, known as Angora, had been a small provincial city, famous mainly for the production of soft goat's wool. This city still exists, in and around the old citadel that was the site of the original settlement.

The other Ankara is the modern metropolis that has grown up around a carefully planned attempt to create a seat of government worthy of a modern, Western-looking state. Ankara’s modern face dues itself to the wide boulevards, the pedestrian precincts, the streets of western-style shops and boutiques, the luxury hotels and top-class restaurants which are the stamp of a confident, forward-looking metropolis. Meanwhile, it offers the tourists and travelers an insight into a three thousand year-old cultural history which is still alive today.