Ankara

Ankara, ancient Ancyra, formerly known as Angora, is a very old city which dates back to the Stone Age.

Developed by the Hittites who gave it the name "Ankuwash" in the mid 2nd Millennium BC, the city gained great importance under the Phrygians at the beginning of the 1st Millennium BC, and later became the capital of Galatia (an ancient Celtic land in central Asia Minor) with the name "Ancyra" in the 3rd Century BC.

Ancyra and the Celtic kingdom of Galatia were destroyed by the Roman emperor Augustus, who erected a famous monument in this city which contains the only known inscriptions attributed directly to him - the priceless "Res Gestae Divi Augusti".

After the Roman conquest Ancyra became the regional capital of the Roman province of Galatia, but in the following centuries the city gradually lost its importance and only occasionally came under the spotlight of history with extraordinary events; such as the famous Battle of Ankara (1402). It took a few centuries for the city to regain its importance, this time as the center of the Turkish liberation movement against the invading Greeks, Italians, British and French in post-WW1 Turkey (then known as the Ottoman Empire).

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkish national hero and founder of the republic, personally chose Ankara as the center for liberating Turkish territories from foreign occupation (1919-1922) following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in WW1. After the war was won, Ankara was given the honour to become the capital city of the Turkish Republic (1923). Today, Ankara is a major metropolis with large squares, wide avenues and modern buildings.

Ankara is also famous for its "Angora Cat", "Angora Rabbit", and "Angora Goat".