Avanos
The district covers an area of 994 km2, with an average elevation is 920 m. The highest point is Mt. İsmail Sivrisi at 1756 m.
Avanos' most important industry is pottery production, an industry which probably dates back to Hittite times and which makes use of clay from the red silt of the Kızılırmak. The town is also a popular tourist destination because of its attractive old town and riverside location.
Like the rest of Cappadocia, Avanos has a continental climate with very hot, dry summers, and cold, snowy winters.
Old Avanos is riddled with a network of small underground "cities" which may once have been residential but are now mainly used by the many pottery enterprises. Although there is no documentary evidence to prove when these structures were carved out of the earth, it is probable that work on some of them began in the Hittite period.
As Venessa, the ancient Avanos was the third most important town in the Kingdom of Cappadocia (332BC-17AD) according to the geographer Strabo. Although it was the site of an important temple of Zeus, nothing remains of it today. In Roman and Byzantine times Avanos had a large Christian population who were responsible for the rock-cut Dereyamanlı Kilisesi. Unusually, this is still occasionally used even today.
Most of the visible remains of Avanos' history date from the 19th and early 20th centuries and take the form of many impressive stone houses, mostly built by the now-lost Greek and Armenian populations. These houses are to be found in the older part of the city on the northern bank of the river. Avanos expanded rapidly in the early 2000s and there is now a lot of modern housing on the southern side of the river which was extensively landscaped and developed for recreational purposes in the years after 2010.
Map - Avanos
Map
Country - Turkey
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| Flag of Turkey | |
One of the world's earliest permanently settled regions, present-day Turkey was home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe, and was inhabited by ancient civilisations including the Hattians, Hittites, Anatolian peoples, Mycenaean Greeks, Persians and others. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great which started the Hellenistic period, most of the ancient regions in modern Turkey were culturally Hellenised, which continued during the Byzantine era. The Seljuk Turks began migrating in the 11th century, and the Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottomans united the principalities and conquered the Balkans, and the Turkification of Anatolia increased during the Ottoman period. After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became a global power. From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power declined with a gradual loss of territories. Mahmud II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 restricted the authority of the Sultan and restored the Ottoman Parliament after a 30-year suspension, ushering the empire into a multi-party period. The 1913 coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas, who facilitated the Empire's entry into World War I as part of the Central Powers in 1914. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian subjects. After its defeat in the war, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRY | Turkish lira | ₺ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| AV | Avar language |
| AZ | Azerbaijani language |
| KU | Kurdish language |
| TR | Turkish language |