Antalya is the gateway to the Turkish Riviera and one of those cities that has it all: an old town of cobbled alleys and Ottoman houses overlooking the Mediterranean, award-winning Blue Flag beaches, waterfalls tumbling into the sea and, a few kilometres away, some of the most impressive Greco-Roman ruins on the planet. Founded more than two thousand years ago by a king of Pergamon who was looking for the best harbour on the south coast, it is still a beautiful natural harbour today, crowned by cliffs and with the Taurus Mountains, often snow-capped, outlined in the background.
The heart of the city is Kaleiçi, the walled historic centre, a maze of narrow streets with restored wooden houses, boutique hotels, craft shops, cafés and the monumental Hadrian's Gate, a Roman marble arch that has stood since the year 130. Below, the old harbour —the same one the Romans used— is now a marina where boats set off to explore the coast and its coves. And just nearby, the fluted Seljuk minaret (Yivli Minare) defines the skyline of the old town.
But Antalya is also the ideal base for travelling back in time: in less than an hour you can reach the Roman theatre of Aspendos, one of the best preserved in the world; the sprawling city of Perge; and Side, with its Temple of Apollo by the sea. This guide helps you combine all of that with a practical approach: what to see in the old town, how to get to the ruins, how much admission costs today (often paid in euros), where the best beaches and waterfalls are, and how to get around a city that blends history, sea and mountains like few others.
Antalya was founded around 150 BC by King Attalus II of Pergamon, who was looking for the best natural harbour on the south coast of Anatolia; in his honour the city was named Attaleia. It soon passed into the hands of Rome, which embellished it with monuments such as Hadrian's Gate, built for the emperor's visit in the year 130. It later became Byzantine, and in 1207 it was conquered by the Seljuk Turks, who adorned it with works such as the fluted minaret (Yivli Minare), the city's symbol. In 1391 it passed to the Ottoman Empire, under which it lived through centuries of calm as a Mediterranean port. In the 20th century, now part of the Republic of Turkey, Antalya went from being a quiet port to becoming the country's great tourism capital, welcoming millions of visitors every year. We tell the whole story, from Pergamon to the present day, on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Turkish Riviera: the coast of Pamphylia and Lycia, with Antalya and its Roman ruins, the Lycian rock-cut tombs, the Turquoise Coast and the land of the real Saint Nicholas.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Antalya's story begins with an unusual commission. Around the middle of the 2nd century BC, King Attalus II of Pergamon wanted to give his realm a great harbour on the southern coast. Pergamon was a Hellenistic kingdom in western Anatolia and a cultural heir to the Greece of Alexander. According to tradition, the king sent his men along the coast to find the best possible site. They came back describing a bay sheltered by high cliffs, with a protected natural harbour and the Taurus Mountains closing off the horizon behind it, and they said they had found 'heaven on earth'. There, around 150 BC, the city was founded and named Attaleia in honour of its founder.
The site really did have every advantage. The harbour offered ships safe shelter, and it's the same one that is now the picturesque Kaleiçi marina. The cliffs protected the city. Behind it, the rugged Taurus Mountains guarded it on the landward side and linked it to the Anatolian plateau through their mountain passes. Attaleia was born as the sea gateway to a whole region, ancient Pamphylia, which was dotted with wealthy cities such as Perge, Aspendos and Side.
When Attalus III, the last king of Pergamon, died in 133 BC, his will left the kingdom to Rome. Like the rest of the territory, Attaleia gradually came under Roman control, and with Rome came its first great golden age.
Under the Roman Empire, Attaleia thrived as the main port of the region of Pamphylia. Its bay even had a military role: in the 1st century BC the general Pompey used this coast as a base for his famous campaign against the Cilician pirates who were raiding the eastern Mediterranean. Under the Roman peace, trade flourished and the city filled up with monuments.
The finest reminder of that era still stands in the heart of the old town. Hadrian's Gate is a richly decorated triumphal arch of white marble with three openings, built in the year 130 to mark Emperor Hadrian's visit to the city. It is one of the best-preserved Roman arches in Anatolia and one of Antalya's best-loved sights.
The region's greatest Roman legacy, though, is not in the city itself but a few kilometres away, in the great cities of Pamphylia that used Attaleia as their port. Perge is vast and monumental, with its colonnaded streets, stadium and theatre. Aspendos has a 2nd-century theatre that ranks among the best preserved anywhere in the world, and its acoustics still amaze visitors. Side has its temple of Apollo looking out over the sea. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Paul of Tarsus preached in this region, landing at Attaleia during his missionary journeys, and the area became an early centre of Christianity. When the Empire split, the city became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire.
In the Middle Ages, Attaleia was a prosperous Byzantine city, but it sat further and further from the centre of things. The empire's main hubs were Constantinople, Thessaloniki and Antioch, so Attaleia's importance still came down to its port, which kept it a trading link between the capital and the eastern Mediterranean. It was a prize worth fighting over. The city suffered raids and disputes, including the tensions and looting of the Crusades, when Christian armies passed along its coast on their way to the Holy Land.
The big change came in 1207, when the city was conquered by the Seljuk Turks of Rum. Their Turkish sultanate ruled much of Anatolia from its capital, Konya, and Antalya became its window onto the Mediterranean and a strategic trading port. The Seljuks left behind their most recognisable building in the city, the Yivli Minare, or 'fluted minaret'. This slender, ribbed brick tower is now the symbol of Antalya and one of the first great works of Turkish-Islamic art in the region.
Seljuk rule did not last forever. Under pressure from the Mongols, the Sultanate of Rum fell apart, and the region split into small Turkish principalities known as beyliks. Antalya and the surrounding area went to one of them, the Teke beylik. Then, at the end of the 14th century, a rising and unstoppable power swallowed them all: the Ottomans.
In 1391 Antalya became part of the Ottoman Empire. Tamerlane's invasion caused upheaval in the early 15th century, and the city was only firmly absorbed into the empire after that. Under Ottoman rule, Antalya spent five relatively peaceful centuries as a mid-sized Mediterranean port, far from the great centres of imperial power. It was never a major metropolis, but it was a busy city with its own trade and shipyards. Its mixed population included Turkish Muslims and Greek Christian communities.
The old town that charms visitors today is Kaleiçi, which means 'inside the castle', and it mostly keeps that Ottoman look. You'll find two-storey timber houses with bay windows and courtyards, narrow lanes running down to the harbour, mosques, fountains and baths. The Ottoman city was built on top of the Roman, Byzantine and Seljuk layers, and that is why it feels like a palimpsest as you walk through it. Here there's a Roman arch, there a Seljuk minaret, and further on a Byzantine church that became a mosque, such as the Kesik Minare, the 'broken minaret'.
Throughout the long Ottoman period, Antalya was the capital of a southern province and led a low-key existence. Its Greek Christian population was still significant in the early 20th century. Then the fall of the empire, the First World War and the birth of modern Turkey completely changed both the city and the whole region.
After the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, Antalya went through a little-remembered episode. From 1919 to 1921 it was occupied by Italy, which hoped to secure a sphere of influence in southern Anatolia as the defeated empire was carved up. The occupation ended when the Turkish nationalist movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk won. The nationalists drove out the foreign powers and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
The birth of the republic brought deep demographic change to the whole region, as it did to the rest of the country. Under the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the Greek-speaking Orthodox Christian community that had lived in and around Antalya for centuries left, and Muslims arrived from Greece. Like the rest of Anatolia, the city became mostly Turkish and Muslim.
For much of the 20th century, Antalya remained a fairly quiet port and farming town. Its great transformation began in the 1970s and took off in the 1980s, when Turkey committed firmly to beach tourism. The climate, the beaches, the ruins and the international airport turned Antalya into the heart of the 'Turkish Riviera'. Huge hotel complexes went up in Lara, Belek and all along the coast. The city grew from a few tens of thousands of inhabitants to more than a million, and every year it welcomes millions of tourists from Europe, Russia and the rest of the world.
Today Antalya is one of the most visited cities on the planet and the undisputed capital of Turkish tourism. Beneath the summer bustle, though, it keeps its historic soul. The old harbour where the ships of Attalus and Rome once moored is still there, along with Hadrian's Gate, the Seljuk minaret and the Ottoman lanes of Kaleiçi. All around, the theatres and columns of Aspendos, Perge and Side still stand tall. They have witnessed more than two thousand years of history on the same Mediterranean shore that a king of Pergamon once called 'heaven on earth'.
