Category
Ancient Site
21 places
- Hagia SophiaJustinian's 6th-century basilica, later an Ottoman mosque and museum — for a thousand years the largest cathedral in the world.UNESCOAncient Site
- EphesusThe Library of Celsus, a 25,000-seat theater and marble streets — one of the best-preserved classical cities in the Mediterranean.UNESCOAncient Site
- Basilica CisternA subterranean forest of 336 columns built to water the Great Palace — two of them resting on Medusa heads.UNESCOAncient Site
- AspendosThe best-preserved Roman theater in Anatolia: 15,000 seats, intact stage building, still used for opera.Ancient Site
- Derinkuyu Underground CityEighteen stories down: stables, chapels, wine presses and ventilation shafts for twenty thousand people.UNESCOAncient Site
- Hippodrome of ConstantinopleThe chariot-racing spine of the Byzantine city, now a square holding an Egyptian obelisk and a bronze serpent column.UNESCOAncient Site
- Walls of ConstantinopleSix kilometers of triple land walls that held for a thousand years, until gunpowder.UNESCOAncient Site
- Temple of ArtemisOne of the Seven Wonders, now a single reassembled column in a field of foundations.UNESCOAncient Site
- SideTemples of Apollo and Athena standing on a promontory at the end of the town's main street.Ancient Site
- Kaymaklı Underground CityWider and lower than Derinkuyu, with rooms still connected to houses in the village above.UNESCOAncient Site
- Hadrian's GateA triple marble arch raised for the emperor's visit, its paving still rutted by chariot wheels.Ancient Site
- PergeA colonnaded street with a water channel running down its center, between Hellenistic towers.Ancient Site
- TermessosA Pisidian city a thousand meters up, never taken by Alexander, now inside a national park.Ancient Site
- Valens AqueductA double tier of Roman arches striding across the modern boulevard that runs beneath it.Ancient Site
- Temple of Augustus and RomeCarries the fullest surviving text of the Res Gestae, the emperor's own account of his reign.Ancient Site
- OlymposRuins tangled in laurel along a stream, with the eternal flames of Chimaera on the ridge above.Ancient Site
- PhaselisThree harbors joined by a paved avenue, with pines running down to the water.Ancient Site
- Great Palace Mosaic MuseumA surviving peristyle floor from the Byzantine imperial palace, hunting scenes rendered in tesserae.UNESCOHistory Museum
- Agora of SmyrnaThe Roman marketplace rebuilt by Marcus Aurelius after the earthquake of 178, with vaulted basement galleries intact.Ancient Site
- ÇavuşinAn abandoned cliff village below the Church of St. John the Baptist, one of the oldest in the region.Ancient Site
- Roman Baths of AnkaraThe hypocaust floor of a 3rd-century bath complex, its brick pillars still standing in rows.Ruins