A reference list of the cultural and natural sites in the Republic of Türkiye that UNESCO has placed on the World Heritage List, with the context that links them to one another.
Last reviewed on 27 September 2026.
UNESCO inscribes sites under three categories: cultural, natural, and mixed. Türkiye's list is dominated by cultural sites — the country has been continuously settled for so long that almost every era has left durable architecture or archaeology — with two mixed sites that combine cultural with striking natural geography. Sites span all seven geographic regions, but the densest cluster sits along the Aegean coast and its hinterland, where the Lydian, Greek and Roman worlds left their longest record. Region labels on the cards below follow the official seven-region division, by province.
A complex of T-shaped megalithic pillars carved with animals, built by hunter-gatherer communities roughly twelve thousand years ago — older than the wheel, older than written language, older than agriculture as a settled practice. Its inscription rewrote the textbook on when and how monumental religious architecture begins.
Located near Şanlıurfa in Southeastern Anatolia. See the Göbekli Tepe guide.
One of the earliest known proto-urban settlements anywhere — densely packed mud-brick houses entered from the roof, decorated with wall paintings and animal symbolism. Çatalhöyük is the canonical example of how early people moved from villages into something that begins to look like a town.
Sits in Central Anatolia, southeast of Konya. See the Konya guide.
A settlement mound on the plain outside Malatya whose layers run from the Neolithic to the Roman period. Its fourth-millennium BCE palace complex is one of the earliest examples of a centralised administration in the Near East, and the site has yielded some of the oldest known metal swords. It is a key place for understanding how early states first took shape.
In Malatya province, Eastern Anatolia.
The fortified capital of the Hittite Empire, with monumental gates carved in low relief and a network of stone-cut sanctuaries at nearby Yazılıkaya. The Hittites were the great rival of New Kingdom Egypt and pioneers of iron working — see the history overview for context.
At Boğazkale in Çorum province, which the official division places in the Black Sea region, although the site sits on the northern edge of the Anatolian plateau. It is usually visited from Ankara.
Layered ruins on a low hill above the Dardanelles whose various phases match — closely enough — the Troy of Homer. Inscribed for both archaeological depth and literary significance.
In Çanakkale province, Marmara region.
The capital of the Phrygian kingdom, the realm associated with King Midas and the legend of the Gordian knot. The citadel mound is surrounded by dozens of burial tumuli, the largest of which covers one of the oldest standing wooden structures in the world. Many finds are displayed in Ankara's Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
Near Polatlı in Ankara province, Central Anatolia. See the Ankara guide.
The capital of the Lydian kingdom, long associated with the earliest coinage and with King Croesus, together with the royal burial mounds of Bin Tepe ("a thousand hills") across the Gediz plain. The later city added a vast Temple of Artemis, a Roman bath-gymnasium complex and one of the largest ancient synagogues known.
Near Salihli in Manisa province, Aegean region.
One of the best-preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean, with the Library of Celsus, the Great Theatre, and the foundations of the Temple of Artemis. A short drive from İzmir; see the Ephesus guide and the Aegean region page for surrounding context.
The Hellenistic capital of the Attalid kings, built in terraces up a steep acropolis above modern Bergama, with one of the steepest theatres of the ancient world, the site of the famous library, and the healing sanctuary of the Asklepion below. The inscription also covers the surrounding tumuli and the Ottoman town that grew at the foot of the hill.
In İzmir province, Aegean region. See the İzmir guide.
A marble-rich Roman city dedicated to Aphrodite, famous for its sculpture school and a remarkably intact stadium. Less crowded than Ephesus and easier to read at human scale.
In Aydın province, Aegean region.
Twin sites of the ancient Lycians on the Mediterranean coast: Xanthos, the political capital, and Letoon, its religious sanctuary. Lycian rock tombs cut into cliff faces nearby remain among the most photographed in Türkiye.
In ancient Lycia, in the Mediterranean region, within easy reach of Fethiye.
Volcanic ash compacted into "tuff", then carved by wind and water into the famous fairy-chimney landscape. Early Byzantine Christians extended that natural carving inwards: rock-cut churches with painted frescoes, monastic complexes, and entire underground cities that could shelter thousands. See the Cappadocia guide.
Cascading white travertine terraces formed by hot mineral springs, with the ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Hierapolis sitting at the top. The site combines a striking natural process with a continuous human story stretching from Hellenistic baths through Roman necropolis and Byzantine basilica. See the Pamukkale guide.
A composite inscription covering the Sultanahmet archaeological park (Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, the Blue Mosque), the Süleymaniye and Zeyrek districts, and the surviving Theodosian land walls. In effect, the inscription protects the visible spine of Byzantine and early Ottoman Constantinople. See the Istanbul guide.
A 13th-century mosque-hospital complex built under the Mengücekid dynasty in the Seljuk era, famous for its astonishingly inventive stone carving — the kind of decoration that almost overflows the architecture it sits on.
In Sivas province, Central Anatolia.
A serial inscription of five mosques from the 13th and 14th centuries whose interiors are forests of carved wooden columns carrying flat timber roofs: the Great Mosque of Afyonkarahisar, the Great Mosque of Sivrihisar, the Ahi Şerafettin (Arslanhane) Mosque in Ankara, the Eşrefoğlu Mosque in Beyşehir near Konya, and the Mahmut Bey Mosque near Kastamonu.
The five buildings lie across the Central Anatolia, Aegean and Black Sea regions.
Mosques, tombs, market quarters and a fortified village that together preserve the early Ottoman urban template — before it was carried west to Edirne and Constantinople. See the Bursa guide.
Sinan's masterpiece in Edirne, often described as the architectural answer he had been working towards his entire career. Its pencil-thin minarets and clear central dome are textbook examples of mature Ottoman classical architecture.
In Edirne, Marmara region.
A caravan town on the old east–west trade routes whose Ottoman-era timber-framed houses, han, hammams and bazaar survive in unusual completeness. It is the classic example of a traditional Ottoman town fabric rather than a single monument.
In Karabük province, Black Sea region.
The 1st-century BCE summit shrine and tomb of King Antiochos of Commagene, with colossal stone heads ranged around an artificial peak. A genuinely strange and memorable site, especially at sunrise. It lies in Adıyaman province; see the Mount Nemrut guide and the Southeastern Anatolia page.
The ruins of a once-great Armenian and Silk Road city on the modern border with Armenia. Inscribed for its layered medieval architecture and its place at the crossroads of multiple religious and political traditions.
In Kars province, Eastern Anatolia.
The basalt city walls of Diyarbakır — among the longest continuous defensive walls anywhere — together with the river-edge market gardens that have fed the city for centuries.
Türkiye adds to the list regularly, and it also maintains a long tentative list of candidate sites that may be nominated in future years. Because inscriptions are decided at each summer session of the World Heritage Committee, any count on a page like this one can go out of date quickly. The canonical and current enumeration is on the UNESCO Türkiye page linked at the top of this article.
Alongside the World Heritage List of places, UNESCO keeps a separate list of Intangible Cultural Heritage: living practices, crafts and performance traditions. Türkiye has one of the longer national entries on that list too. Elements include:
The full and current set of elements is listed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage site.
If you trace the inscriptions across the country, three broad clusters emerge. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts and their hinterland hold the densest concentration of Lydian, Greek and Roman sites — a legacy of the Ionian, Lydian, Lycian and Carian city networks. The Anatolian plateau and its northern fringe carry the Hittite, Phrygian, Byzantine and Seljuk imprint, with Cappadocia as its natural-cultural showpiece. Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia preserve some of the oldest sites of all — Göbekli Tepe, Arslantepe — alongside frontier sites of Commagene, Armenia and upper Mesopotamia that lay outside the classical Mediterranean orbit. Each of the regional pages places its inscribed sites in local context.
Türkiye has more than twenty properties on the World Heritage List, the great majority of them cultural and two of them mixed cultural and natural sites. New sites are added at the World Heritage Committee's summer sessions, so the UNESCO World Heritage Centre page for Türkiye is the authoritative source for the current total.
The most recent inscription covered on this page is Sardis and the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe, added in 2025. Decisions from the July 2026 session may not yet be reflected here, so check the UNESCO list for any newer additions.
Göbekli Tepe, near Şanlıurfa, is the oldest by a wide margin. Its carved stone pillars were raised by hunter-gatherers around twelve thousand years ago, thousands of years before Çatalhöyük, Arslantepe or Troy.
Two: Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, and Hierapolis–Pamukkale. Both were inscribed for a remarkable natural landscape, volcanic tuff in one case and travertine terraces in the other, as well as for the human history built into it.
The World Heritage List covers places: monuments, archaeological sites, historic towns and landscapes. The Intangible Cultural Heritage lists cover living practices such as rituals, crafts, performing arts and social customs. Türkiye appears on both, with entries on the intangible side including Turkish coffee culture, the Mevlevi Sema ceremony and Karagöz shadow theatre.
Related guides: Safranbolu, Pergamon (Bergama), Edirne, Kars and Ani, Diyarbakır.