TR · Curated travel guide
Hagia Sophia, Mount Ararat, Göbekli Tepe and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about Türkiye and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. 4 are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
Mosque and former church in Istanbul, Turkey
Officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, a mosque and major cultural and historic site in Istanbul, Turkey, which was earlier a church (360–1453) and then a museum (1935–2020).
Photo: Arild Vågen, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Highest mountain in Turkey
Officially Mount Ağrı, and also called Masis, a dormant compound volcano and stratovolcano in the far east of Turkey, capped with snow. It has two main volcanic cones, Little Ararat and Greater Ararat.
Photo: Սէրուժ Ուրիշեան (Serouj Ourishian), CC BY-SA 4.0
World Heritage
Neolithic archaeological site in Turkey
A Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira), in present-day Turkey, lived in from around 9500 BCE until at least 8000 BCE, in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic.
Photo: Teomancimit, CC BY-SA 3.0
Ancient Greek temple in Ephesus (near present-day Selçuk, Turkey)
Also called the Artemision or the Temple of Diana, a Greek temple to a local form of the goddess Artemis at Ephesus, near today's Selçuk in Turkey.
Photo: Philip Galle, Public domain
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
Also called the Tomb of Mausolus, a tomb built in 353–351 BC at Halicarnassus for Mausolus, an Anatolian from Caria and satrap of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and for Artemisia II, his sister and wife. The Greek architects Pythius of Priene and Satyros of Paros designed it.
Photo: FollowingHadrian, CC BY-SA 4.0
17th-century mosque in Turkey
Properly the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, a historic imperial mosque of the Ottoman era in Istanbul, Turkey, built from 1609 to 1617 under Ahmed I.
Photo: Moonik, CC BY-SA 3.0
World Heritage
Archaeological site in Turkey
A tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city in southern Anatolia, occupied from around 7500 BC to 5600 BC and at its height around 7000 BC. It looks over the Konya Plain, southeast of today's Konya, Turkey, around 140 km (87 mi) from Mount Hasan, a twin-coned volcano. It is notable for its size, its seemingly egalitarian society and its value as a well-preserved early Neolithic permanent settlement.
Photo: Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0
World Heritage
Mosque in Edirne, Turkey
An Ottoman imperial mosque in Edirne, Turkey, commissioned by Sultan Selim II and built by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan from 1568 to 1575.
Photo: Nevit Dilmen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey
Also called the Seraglio, a large museum and library in the eastern part of Istanbul's Fatih district, in Turkey. From the 1460s until Dolmabahçe Palace was finished in 1853, it was the administrative heart of the Ottoman Empire and the chief home of its sultans.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0
World Heritage
Mountain in Adıyaman, Turkey
Also spelled Nemrud, a mountain 2,150-metre-high (7,054 ft) in south-eastern Turkey, among the highest peaks of the eastern Taurus Mountains. On its summit, large statues stand around what is thought to be a royal tomb of the 1st century BC.
Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0
Officially the Republic of Türkiye, a country mostly in Anatolia, in West Asia, with a smaller part, East Thrace, in Southeast Europe. The Black Sea lies to its north; Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia to its east; the Mediterranean, Syria and Iraq to its south; and Bulgaria, Greece and the Aegean to its west. Over 86 million people live there, mostly ethnic Turks, with Kurds the largest minority.
Officially The Republic of Türkiye.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Hagia Sophia, Mount Ararat, Göbekli Tepe and Temple of Artemis and others. Göbekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük, Selimiye Mosque, Edirne and Mount Nemrut are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in Türkiye that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
4 of the 10 in this guide: Göbekli Tepe, Çatalhöyük, Selimiye Mosque, Edirne and Mount Nemrut. That is not the full count for Türkiye, only the listed sites that made this guide.
Turkish. The currency is TRY.
A travel eSIM is usually the cheapest way, and avoids a roaming bill. The plans suggested at the foot of this guide start at $2.31 for 3GB per day. The eSIM is data-only and sits alongside your normal SIM, so calls, texts and WhatsApp keep working on your own number.
Vodafon. Your phone picks whichever has the best signal where you are, the same way a local phone does.
Maps, tickets and translation all want data, and roaming is the expensive way to get it. A Computatus eSIM eSIM connects to Vodafon once you land, and installs by QR code before you leave.
| Plan | Data | Valid | Price | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3GB per day Cheapest | 3 GB | 1 day | $2.31 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 15 days | 3 GB | 15 days | $2.49 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 30 days | 3 GB | 30 days | $2.54 | Get it → |
| 5GB per day | 5 GB | 1 day | $3.22 | Get it → |
| 5GB for 30 days | 5 GB | 30 days | $4.12 | Get it → |
| 10GB per day | 10 GB | 1 day | $4.65 | Get it → |
No app needed. Install by QR code before you fly, keep your own number for calls, and it connects the moment you land.
A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this guide. Nothing above depends on it: the places are chosen before any price is looked up.
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