Theme Week Turkey – Ankara: doner kebab, good wine and Angora

11 August 2011 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  11 minutes

Turkish Parliament © T.C. Büyük Millet Meclisi

Turkish Parliament © T.C. Büyük Millet Meclisi

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country’s second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of 938 metres (3,077 ft), and as of 2008 the city had a population of 4,500,000. Ankara also serves as the capital of Ankara Province. As with many ancient cities, Ankara has gone by several names over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš, although this remains a matter of debate. In classical antiquity and during the medieval period, the city was known as Ánkyra (Ἄγκυρα, “anchor”) in Greek and Ancyra in Latin; the Galatian Celtic name was probably a similar variant. Following its annexation by the Seljuq Turks in 1073, the city became known in many European languages as Angora, a usage which continued until its official renaming to “Ankara” under the Turkish Postal Service Law of 1930. Another proposed theory show that the original name of the city might be taken over from the Ankara River of Asia by the invading Seljuk Turks.   read more…

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