🇹🇷 Turkey
Ankara
Ankara (population 5.7 million — the capital of Turkey since 1923 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk moved the capital from Istanbul to the Anatolian plateau city of Angora (the ancient name — the origin of Angora wool, the long-haired wool from the Angora goat (now "Mohair" from the Angora goat, "Angora" from the Angora rabbit) that was the primary export of the region for centuries) to consolidate the new Republic's identity separate from the Ottoman imperial capital) is one of the most misunderstood capitals in Europe and the Middle East: routinely dismissed by travellers and even by Turks themselves as "boring" in comparison with Istanbul, Ankara is in fact a city of exceptional museums (the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations — the finest collection of prehistoric, Hittite, Phrygian and early Anatolian artifacts in the world, housed in a 15th-century Ottoman bedesten), extraordinary ancient history (the Hittite Empire (the Bronze Age superpower that fought Egypt to a standstill at the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BCE, the earliest battle recorded in detail in military history, and signed the world's earliest known peace treaty (the Treaty of Kadesh)), the Phrygian Kingdom (the kingdom of the legendary King Midas (who turned everything to gold) whose capital was at Gordion 80km west of Ankara), the Galatian Kingdom (the Celtic tribe (the Galatoi — the Galatians who appear in Paul's letter to the Galatians in the New Testament) who settled central Anatolia in the 3rd century BCE and maintained their Celtic language and customs for 500 years in Asia Minor) and the Roman temple of Augustus (the only Temple of Augustus surviving from the Roman Empire, built in the 1st century BCE and containing the "Monumentum Ancyranum" — the complete text of Res Gestae Divi Augusti, the autobiography of Emperor Augustus, carved on the temple walls: the most important Latin inscription in the world outside Rome) make Ankara an essential destination for anyone interested in ancient and medieval history.