Country guide
Turkey
Turkey brings together sacred architecture, pilgrimage traditions, and landscapes shaped by memory, ritual, and local devotion.
190 sacred sites across 156 regions. Use the tradition and site-type filters to narrow in.
Atlas summary
Turkey sacred sites overview
Turkey sacred sites include living temples, shrines, churches, pilgrimage places, ruins, and sacred landscapes indexed across the Pilgrim Map atlas.
Use this guide to compare regional clusters, represented traditions, and common site types before opening individual pages for visiting context and deeper background.
| Coverage | 190 sacred sites across 156 regions. |
|---|---|
| Regional clusters | |
| Traditions | |
| Site types | |
| UNESCO heritage | 4 UNESCO-tagged sites in this country guide. |
Showing 49-96 of 190 sites in this country guide
Colophon
İzmir, Değirmendere area, Turkey
Colophon was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, founded at the end of the second millennium BCE on the hills above the Aegean coast of what is now western...
Cremna
Bucak area, Burdur Province, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Cremna sits at the edge of a promontory above the Aksu Valley in Burdur Province, its name derived from the Greek word for cliff....
Cyaneae
Yavu / Kaş region, Antalya, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Cyaneae stands on a hill above the village of Yavu in western Lycia, its streets lined with more sarcophagi than any other known Lycian city....
Cyme
Aliağa, İzmir, Aegean Region, Turkey
Cyme was the largest and most influential of the twelve Aeolian cities of Asia Minor — a harbor metropolis whose Apollo oracle was consulted in moments of civic crisis,...
Cyzicus
Erdek, Balıkesir, Marmara Region, Turkey
Cyzicus was once one of the most powerful and sacred cities of the ancient world — hosting the Temple of Hadrian, the largest Roman sacred structure ever built....
Didyma
Didim, Aydın, Turkey
Didyma held one of the ancient Greek world's most consulted oracles of Apollo, second in prestige only to Delphi....
Eflatunpınar
Konya, Beyşehir area, Turkey
Built by a Hittite Great King as a monument to divine water, Eflatunpınar has kept faith with its original purpose for thirty-two centuries: the spring still flows, the...
Elaiussa Sebaste
Ayaş / Erdemli, Mersin Province, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Elaiussa Sebaste began on a small island in the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean's Cilician coast and grew outward until it connected to the mainland by a built...
Ephesus
Selçuk, Aegean Region, Turkey
For three millennia, the hills above Ephesus have been sacred to feminine divinity—first Cybele, then Artemis whose temple was one of the Seven Wonders, and now Mary,...
Erythrai
Çeşme / Ildırı, İzmir, Aegean Region, Turkey
Erythrai stood at the intersection of Ionian, Phoenician, and proto-Christian sacred traditions: home to the Erythraean Sibyl, one of antiquity's most celebrated oracular...
Euromos
Muğla, Milas, Turkey
Euromos preserves one of the most complete Corinthian temples in Asia Minor — sixteen columns of the Temple of Zeus Lepsynos still standing in an ancient olive grove....
Fasıllar Monument
Fasıllar, Konya, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
On an open hillside near Beyşehir in Konya Province, an 8-meter basalt block carries the most ambitious Hittite religious sculpture ever attempted: the storm god...
Fıraktın Relief
Develi area, Kayseri, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
Carved into a riverside boulder in a Taurus mountain valley fifty kilometers south of Kayseri, the Fıraktın relief depicts Hittite Great King Hattusili III pouring water...
Foça Castle
Foça, İzmir, Aegean Region, Turkey
Foça Castle occupies the promontory at the entrance to Foça Bay where the ancient Phocaeans built the Temple of Athena — the oldest known Ionian temple — on an even older...
Gavurkale
Near Dereköy, Haymana, Ankara, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
Rising sixty meters above a stream valley sixty kilometers southwest of Ankara, Gavurkale carries the carved images of three deities — a seated goddess and two...
Gerdekkaya Tomb
Eskişehir / Afyonkarahisar Phrygian Valley region, Turkey
In a quiet agricultural valley on the border of Eskişehir and Afyonkarahisar, a single great rock rises from the plain bearing a façade carved to resemble a Doric temple....
Göbekli Tepe
Haliliye, Şanlıurfa, Turkey
Göbekli Tepe is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic hilltop sanctuary in southeastern Turkey, built approximately 12,000 years ago by mobile hunter-gatherer communities who carved...
Gökbez Relief
Bor district, Niğde, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
In a courtyard in Gökbez village, Niğde Province, a massive stone block lies on its side against a house wall — a Neo-Hittite storm god who has been horizontal for...
Gordion
Ankara, Polatlı, Yassıhöyük, Turkey
The Phrygian capital that gave the world its most enduring metaphor for intractable problems — and the young conqueror who resolved it with a sword blow....
Gusir Höyük
Siirt, Southeastern Anatolia / Upper Tigris, Turkey
Gusir Höyük is one of southeastern Anatolia's rarest Neolithic sites — a stratified settlement near the Tigris-Botan confluence in Siirt province, occupied from roughly...
Hanyeri Relief
Tufanbeyli area, Adana, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
Carved four meters above a mountain road at the Gezbeli Pass in the Taurus Mountains, the Hanyeri relief names the divine owner of the mountain it occupies: Sharruma,...
Harbetsuvan Tepesi
Şanlıurfa, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey
Harbetsuvan Tepesi is a small-scale Pre-Pottery Neolithic B cult centre in the Tek Tek Mountains, 53 km east of Şanlıurfa, excavated 2017–2019....
Harput Castle
Elazığ, Harput, Turkey
Harput Castle has drawn human devotion to this mountain above the eastern Anatolian plain for approximately four millennia — from Urartian fortress culture through...
Harran
Harran, Şanlıurfa Province, Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey
Harran is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sacred cities on earth — the foremost temple of the Mesopotamian moon god Sin for four millennia, the place where...
Hasankeyf Höyük
Batman, Southeastern Anatolia / Upper Tigris, Turkey
Hasankeyf Höyük is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site on the left bank of the Tigris in Batman province, southeastern Turkey, occupied by hunter-fisher-gatherers in the 10th...
Hattusha
Çorum, Boğazkale; 40°00′50.00″N, 34°37′14.00″E, Turkey
Hattusha was the capital of the Hittite Empire, a Bronze Age superpower that rivaled Egypt and Babylon and signed the world's oldest surviving peace treaty....
Hattusha Lion Gate
Turkey
The Lion Gate of Hattusa stands at the high southwestern point of a six-kilometre fortification wall surrounding what was once the Bronze Age world's largest capital — the...
Hemite Relief
Gökçedam / former Hemite, Osmaniye, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
On the north bank of the Ceyhan River in Osmaniye Province, a 13th-century BC Hittite warrior-prince gazes outward from the cliff face above the water....
Heraclea by Latmus
Muğla / Aydın, Lake Bafa, Turkey
Heraclea by Latmus stands on the shore of Lake Bafa — a lake that was once an Aegean inlet — beneath the granite pinnacles of Beşparmak Mountain....
Hierapolis Plutonion and the Cleopatra Pool
Pamukkale, Pamukkale, Denizli, Turkey
Hierapolis was built on a karstic fault that exhales both deadly carbon-dioxide and warm mineral water....
Hierapolis-Pamukkale
Pamukkale, Denizli, Aegean Region, Turkey
Hierapolis-Pamukkale is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where three thousand years of sacred use converge: white calcium terraces formed by thermal springs, the ruins of a...
Iasos
Muğla, Kıyıkışlacık, Turkey
Iasos occupies a rocky promontory in the Gulf of Güllük that was once a true island, connected to the mainland only by a narrow causeway....
İmamkullu Relief
Tomarza area, Kayseri, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
On the flank of Bey Dağı in Kayseri's Tomarza district, a trachyte boulder carries the most dynamic image in Hittite rock art: the Thunder God Teshub riding his chariot...
İvriz Monuments
Konya, Halkapınar, c. 4 km south of town, Turkey
At a cliff face above a perennial spring in the Konya foothills, the Neo-Hittite king Warpalawa had himself carved in an act of worship before Tarhunzas — the storm and...
Kaman-Kalehöyük
Kırşehir, Çağırkan / Kaman, Turkey
Kaman-Kalehöyük holds over 40 layers of human occupation spanning 9,000 years — from the Chalcolithic through the Ottoman period — in central Anatolia....
Kanlıdivane
Erdemli, Mersin Province, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
At Kanlıdivane, an enormous karst sinkhole drops seventy metres into the Cilician limestone, and everything built here — a Hellenistic tower, four Byzantine basilicas, a...
Karabel Relief
Kemalpaşa–Torbalı corridor, İzmir, Aegean Region, Turkey
A rock relief carved three millennia ago by a Hittite vassal king watches over the Karabel Pass in the hills east of İzmir....
Karadağ Monuments
Karadağ massif, Karaman, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
Karadağ — the 'Black Mountain' — is an extinct volcanic massif in southern Konya that has drawn sacred attention for at least three thousand years....
Karahantepe
Şanlıurfa, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey
Karahantepe is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in southeastern Turkey's Tek Tek Mountains, open to visitors since 2025, whose Pillar Shrine contains 11 T-shaped pillars...
Karakuş Tumulus
Kahta, Adıyaman, Southeast Anatolia Region, Turkey
Karakuş Tumulus is an artificial mound 30 metres high and 150 metres across, built c....
Karasu Relief
Araban district, Gaziantep, Southeastern Anatolia Region, Turkey
On a cliff face two hundred meters above the Karasu River near its meeting with the Euphrates, the Karasu Relief shows a deity standing on a stag: Runtiya, the...
Karatepe-Aslantaş
Osmaniye, Kadirli / Kızyusuflu, Turkey
Karatepe-Aslantaş is a late Iron Age fortress-city in the Taurus Mountains whose bilingual Phoenician-Luwian inscription unlocked the decipherment of Anatolian hieroglyphs...
Kaunos
Muğla, Dalyan, Turkey
Kaunos is an ancient Carian city whose most striking feature is a row of spectacular rock-cut tombs carved high into a vertical cliff face above the Dalyan River....
Kaunos Tomb of the Kings
Muğla, Dalyan, Turkey
Cut directly into the limestone face of Balıklar Mountain, the temple tombs of Kaunos have watched the Dalyan River delta for more than two millennia....
Kerkenes Dağ
Yozgat, Sorgun / Şahmuratlı, Turkey
Kerkenes Dağ is an Iron Age city that lasted barely a century before Croesus burned it to the ground and left it sealed in fire....
Kibyra
Gölhisar, Burdur, Mediterranean Region, Turkey
At the junction of four ancient Anatolian worlds — Lycia, Caria, Pisidia, and Phrygia — Kibyra built one of the most complete stadiums in the ancient world, carved...
Kızıldağ Monuments
South of Adakale / Çumra area, Konya, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey
Rising from the flat Konya plain as a volcanic cone of red rock, Kızıldağ was the royal mountain sanctuary of King Hartapu — an Iron Age Luwian ruler who carved his...
Klazomenai
İzmir, Urla / Limantepe zone, Turkey
Klazomenai was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League, established on the western Anatolian coast in the first millennium BCE....
Showing 49-96 of 190 sites
Key questions
Turkey sacred-site questions
- What sacred sites can I explore in Turkey?
- Pilgrim Map lists sacred places in Turkey across living worship sites, heritage landmarks, pilgrimage destinations, and culturally significant landscapes. The current guide lists 190 sites organized by region, tradition, and site type.
- Which traditions are represented in Turkey?
- The most represented traditions include Ancient, Multi-tradition, Hellenistic Greek, Prehistoric, Phrygian, Christianity.
- How should I plan a sacred-site visit in Turkey?
- Start with regional clusters, compare nearby places on the map, then open individual site pages for coordinates, etiquette, and sacred context where available.
- Can I view Turkey sacred sites on a map?
- Yes. Switch to map view to compare geographic clusters, then open individual site pages for coordinates, visiting context, and related places.