Kent, Avrupa ve Asya'yý birbirine baðlayan stratejik konumu nedeniyle tarihi boyunca kentte hüküm süren uygarlýklar için daima çok önemli olmuþtur. Bu özellikleri ile kent, Roma, Bizans ve Osmanlý gibi büyük Ýmparatorlulara baþkentlik yapmýþtýr. Bu görkemli geçmiþi ile farklý dinleri, kültürleri, topluluklarý ve bunlarýn ürünü olan yapýtlarý benzersiz bir coðrafyada bir araya getiren Ýstanbul, 1985 tarihinde UNESCO Dünya Miras Listesi’ne 4 ana bölüm olarak dahil edilmiþtir. Bunlar; Hipodrom, Ayasofya, Aya Ýrini, Küçük Ayasofya Camisi ve Topkapý Sarayý’ný içine alan Arkeolojik Park; Süleymaniye Camisi ve çevresini içine alan Süleymaniye Koruma Alaný; Zeyrek Camisi ve çevresini içine alan Zeyrek Koruma Alaný ve Tarihi Surlar Koruma Alaný’ný içermektedir.

This region of Anatolia was conquered by the Turks at the beginning of the 11th century. In 1228–29 Emir Ahmet Shah founded a mosque, with its adjoining hospital, at Divrigi. The mosque has a single prayer room and is crowned by two cupolas. The highly sophisticated technique of vault construction, and a creative, exuberant type of decorative sculpture – particularly on the three doorways, in contrast to the unadorned walls of the interior – are the unique features of this masterpiece of Islamic architecture.

The mausoleum of Antiochus I (69–34 B.C.), who reigned over Commagene, a kingdom founded north of Syria and the Euphrates after the breakup of Alexander's empire, is one of the most ambitious constructions of the Hellenistic period. The syncretism of its pantheon, and the lineage of its kings, which can be traced back through two sets of legends, Greek and Persian, is evidence of the dual origin of this kingdom's culture.

This site, which was the capital of Lycia, illustrates the blending of Lycian traditions and Hellenic influence, especially in its funerary art. The epigraphic inscriptions are crucial for our understanding of the history of the Lycian people and their Indo-European language.

From the 13th century to the advent of the railway in the early 20th century, Safranbolu was an important caravan station on the main East–West trade route. The Old Mosque, Old Bath and Süleyman Pasha Medrese were built in 1322. During its apogee in the 17th century, Safranbolu's architecture influenced urban development throughout much of the Ottoman Empire.

The archaeological site of Gordion ranks as one of the most important historical centres in the ancient Near East. Gordion lies approximately ninety kilometres south-west of Ankara in central Türkiye, at the intersection of the great empires to the east (Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites) and the west (Greeks, Romans). Consequently, it occupied a strategic position on nearly all trade routes that linked the Aegean and Mediterranean seas with the Near East. Gordion is an outstanding archaeological site for understanding the Phrygian civilisation and its achievements. The buildings of its Early Phrygian citadel, and the burial mounds of the city’s rulers, constitute the exceptional exemplars of monumental architecture in the Iron Age Near East.

The entrance to the Phrygian citadel features the best-preserved Iron Age (10th-8th centuries BCE) fortified gate complex that has yet been discovered, with stone masonry still preserved to a height of ten metres. The elite buildings within the citadel feature the earliest known coloured floor mosaics. The citadel’s industrial quarter, or Terrace Complex, was dedicated to large-scale food preparation and the production of textiles. With a length of over a hundred metres, the complex is without parallel in the ancient world. The roofing systems of the citadel’s buildings featured timber beams over ten metres in length with no internal supports, which is a daring, unparalleled feat of engineering for the period. The large concentration of monumental tumuli in the vicinity of Gordion creates an exceptional landscape of power, different from any other site in the Near East. The largest of the tumuli, the “Midas Mound” (Tumulus MM), rises to a height of fifty-three metres and the burial chamber within is the oldest known standing wooden building in the world (ca. 740 BCE), and inside it was found the best-preserved wooden furniture known from antiquity.

Criterion (iii): Gordion was the political and cultural centre of ancient Phrygia and today it represents the best surviving testimony to Phrygian civilisation, an Iron Age civilisation which developed in Anatolia and excelled in timber construction, woodcarving and metalwork.

Integrity

The property fully includes all the attributes that reflect its Outstanding Universal Value and is large enough for the context of these to be properly appreciated and understood. A long-term conservation programme under implementation ensures that an appropriate state of conservation is progressively achieved for all excavated areas. The tumuli and the unexcavated areas are overall in good condition, although smaller tumuli suffer from the effects of deep-ploughing. Measures are being envisaged to prevent their further erosion.

Authenticity

The level of authenticity of all attributes of the property is high. Seventy years of excavation and research have revealed a remarkable quality, quantity, and variety of archaeological remains, with high levels of preservation. There has been in situ consolidation work on parts of the structures on the Citadel Mound. The substantial amount of data recovered from the archaeological excavations has ensured that the archaeological remains subject to stabilisation/consolidation work retain a high level of authenticity in terms of material and design. All stabilisation work has been based on complete and detailed documentation.

Protection and management requirements

The property has the highest level of site designation, having been designated as a 1st and 3rd degree archaeological conservation area by the Decision No.1096, 16/02/1990 of the Ankara Regional Council for Conservation of Cultural and Natural Properties. In addition, the status of 3rd degree archaeological conservation area designation ensures that the immediate setting of the Citadel Mound at the west and north peripheries is protected from adverse development. This is also protected and managed within the framework of the Protection of Cultural and Natural Properties Law n. 2863/1983.

The buffer zone is protected through national, regional, or local plans and through its designation as agricultural land, subject to provisions of the Soil Protection and Land-Use Law n. 5403/2005. The wider setting is covered by District Rural Settlement Development Plans. A management system and mechanisms are in place and include a management plan: its implementation through a participative approach towards the local community will guarantee its effectiveness.

Proactive measures to prevent looting and mechanisms to support the farming community vis-à-vis the necessary restrictions to preserve buried archaeological deposits are key for the long-term sustenance of the integrity and authenticity of the attributes of Gordion’s Outstanding Universal Value, as is the preservation of the rural character of its immediate and wider setting.

Troy, with its 4,000 years of history, is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. The first excavations at the site were undertaken by the famous archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in 1870. In scientific terms, its extensive remains are the most significant demonstration of the first contact between the civilizations of Anatolia and the Mediterranean world. Moreover, the siege of Troy by Spartan and Achaean warriors from Greece in the 13th or 12th century B.C., immortalized by Homer in the Iliad, has inspired great creative artists throughout the world ever since.

The square Mosque with its single great dome and four slender minarets, dominates the skyline of the former Ottoman capital of Edirne. Sinan, the most famous of Ottoman architects in the 16th century, considered the complex, which includes madrasas (Islamic schools), a covered market, clock house, outer courtyard and library, to be his best work. The interior decoration using Iznik tiles from the peak period of their production testifies to an art form that remains unsurpassed in this material. The complex is considered to be the most harmonious expression ever achieved of the Ottoman külliye, a group of buildings constructed around a mosque and managed as a single institution.

Two hills form the 37 ha site on the Southern Anatolian Plateau. The taller eastern mound contains eighteen levels of Neolithic occupation between 7400 bc and 6200 bc, including wall paintings, reliefs, sculptures and other symbolic and artistic features. Together they testify to the evolution of social organization and cultural practices as humans adapted to a sedentary life. The western mound shows the evolution of cultural practices in the Chalcolithic period, from 6200 bc to 5200 bc. Çatalhöyük provides important evidence of the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration, which was maintained in the same location for over 2,000 years. It features a unique streetless settlement of houses clustered back to back with roof access into the buildings.

This site rises high above the Bakirçay Plain in Turkey’s Aegean region. The acropolis of Pergamon was the capital of the Hellenistic Attalid dynasty, a major centre of learning in the ancient world. Monumental temples, theatres, stoa or porticoes, gymnasium, altar and library were set into the sloping terrain surrounded by an extensive city wall. The rock-cut Kybele Sanctuary lies to the north-west on another hill visually linked to the acropolis. Later the city became capital of the Roman province of Asia known for its Asclepieion healing centre. The acropolis crowns a landscape containing burial mounds and remains of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires in and around the modern town of Bergama on the lower slopes.

This property is a serial nomination of eight component sites in the City of Bursa and the nearby village of Cumalýkýzýk, in the southern Marmara region. The site illustrates the creation of an urban and rural system establishing the Ottoman Empire in the early 14th century. The property embodies the key functions of the social and economic organization of the new capital which evolved around a civic centre. These include commercial districts of khans, kulliyes (religious institutions) integrating mosques, religious schools, public baths and a kitchen for the poor, as well as the tomb of Orhan Ghazi, founder of the Ottoman dynasty. One component outside the historic centre of Bursa is the village of Cumalýkýzýk, the only rural village of this system to show the provision of hinterland support for the capital.

Located on an escarpment of the Upper Tigris River Basin that is part of the so-called Fertile Crescent, the fortified city of Diyarbakýr and the landscape around has been an important centre since the Hellenistic period, through the Roman, Sassanid, Byzantine, Islamic and Ottoman times to the present. The site encompasses the Inner castle, known as Ýçkale and including the Amida Mound, and the 5.8 km-long city walls of Diyarbakýr with their numerous towers, gates, buttresses, and 63 inscriptions. The site also includes the Hevsel Gardens, a green link between the city and the Tigris that supplied the city with food and water, the Anzele water source and the Ten-Eyed Bridge.

This site is located on a secluded plateau of northeast Turkey overlooking a ravine that forms a natural border with Armenia. This medieval city combines residential, religious and military structures, characteristic of a medieval urbanism built up over the centuries by Christian and then Muslim dynasties. The city flourished in the 10th and 11th centuries CE when it became the capital of the medieval Armenian kingdom of the Bagratides and profited from control of one branch of the Silk Road. Later, under Byzantine, Seljuk and Georgian sovereignty, it maintained its status as an important crossroads for merchant caravans. The Mongol invasion and a devastating earthquake in 1319 marked the beginning of the city’s decline. The site presents a comprehensive overview of the evolution of medieval architecture through examples of almost all the different architectural innovations of the region between the 7th and 13th centuries CE.

In a spectacular landscape, entirely sculpted by erosion, the Göreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Dwellings, troglodyte villages and underground towns – the remains of a traditional human habitat dating back to the 4th century – can also be seen there.

Deriving from springs in a cliff almost 200 m high overlooking the plain, calcite-laden waters have created at Pamukkale (Cotton Palace) an unreal landscape, made up of mineral forests, petrified waterfalls and a series of terraced basins. At the end of the 2nd century B.C. the dynasty of the Attalids, the kings of Pergamon, established the thermal spa of Hierapolis. The ruins of the baths, temples and other Greek monuments can be seen at the site.