Çankırı

i.The Salt-Mine Province

Çankırı sits in the small upland country between the Kızılırmak basin and the foothills of the Pontic Alps, on the small Tatlı Çay river ninety kilometres northeast of Ankara. The province is one of the transitional zones between the central Anatolian plateau and the Black Sea, with the long wooded ridge of Ilgaz Dağı (2,587 m) forming its northern boundary with Kastamonu province. The country is the highest of the central Anatolian provinces by mean elevation (about 800–1,000 m), and one of the smallest by population. Through the wide Iron Age and Roman centuries it was the heart of Paphlagonia — the upland part of the country between the Bithynian and Pontic coasts, a region of small Phrygian-and-Hellenistic towns and salt-rich valleys.

ii.Gangra — Paphlagonian Capital

The historic-period city on the modern site of Çankırı was the Paphlagonian-period capital of Gangra. The Paphlagonians, Britannica records, "were one of the most ancient peoples of Anatolia, passing under the rule of Lydia and Persia before submitting to Alexander the Great (333 BCE), after which they enjoyed a measure of independence." The Paphlagonian kingdom flourished in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE as a small independent state, capital at Gangra, navigating the larger powers of the eastern Mediterranean — the Seleucid empire to the east, the kingdom of Pergamon to the southwest, and the rising Pontic kingdom of Mithradates VI to the east. In the 3rd to 1st centuries BCE Paphlagonia was gradually absorbed by the expanding Pontic kingdom, and when Pompey destroyed Pontus in 65 BCE the country was reorganised under a mix of Roman client-kingdoms and provincial administration.

iii.Roman Germanicopolis and the Province of Galatia

The decisive Roman incorporation came around 6 BCE, when — following the extinction of the native Paphlagonian dynasty — the inland country was added to the Roman province of Galatia. The city of Gangra was renamed Germanicopolis in honour of the imperial general Germanicus (15 BCE – 19 CE) and continued as the principal provincial centre of inland Paphlagonia. The city is mentioned in Pliny the Elder, in Ptolemy, and in the early Christian sources — it was the see of a substantial bishopric from the 4th century, and was the site of the Council of Gangra (c. 340 CE), one of the foundational regional councils of the eastern Christian church, which addressed questions of monastic discipline and the relation between asceticism and ordinary church life. Through the long Byzantine centuries Gangra-Germanicopolis remained a working provincial capital and a fortified centre on the Pontic frontier.

iv.Byzantine and Seljuk Centuries

The country was repeatedly raided by Arab forces in the 7th to 10th centuries; the city's walls were rebuilt in stone under the Macedonian emperors of the late 9th and early 10th centuries. The Seljuk Turkish capture came after the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071; by the early 12th century the country was held by the small Turkmen Çobanoğulları beylik, with its capital at Kastamonu and Çankırı as a secondary centre. Through the 13th and 14th centuries the country passed in succession through the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, the post-Mongol Eretnid Beylik, and the Candaroğulları beylik (also called the İsfendiyaroğulları), which controlled the wider Paphlagonian country from Kastamonu through the 14th century.

v.The Ottoman Annexation

Ottoman annexation came in stages through the late 14th and 15th centuries — Bayezid I first occupied the Candaroğlu lands in the 1390s, the Timurid interregnum (1402–1413) returned them temporarily to local rule, and Mehmed I and Mehmed II completed the definitive annexation by the 1460s. Through the long Ottoman centuries Çankırı was a working second-rank sancak of the larger Kastamonu Eyaleti. The principal Ottoman-period monuments of the city are the Ulu Camii (rebuilt in the 16th century over earlier foundations) and the Taş Mescit — a small 13th-century Seljuk-period prayer hall on the citadel slope, with a notable carved stone portal.

vi.The Tuz Mağarası — Five Thousand Years of Salt

The single most distinctive feature of Çankırı is its Tuz Mağarası ("Salt Cave") — a vast network of underground galleries cut into a thick rock-salt deposit at the Balıbağı village on the eastern edge of the city. The Valilik's official account dates continuous salt mining at the site to 5,000 years — making it among the oldest continuously worked salt mines in the world. The deposit is among the largest pure-salt formations in Türkiye: thick beds of rock salt with a network of natural and human-cut chambers some of which reach 35 metres in height. The mine is still in active production under the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA); a portion is open to visitors as a "salt-and-climate-therapy centre" (the Tuz Şehri, "Salt City"), with carved-salt sculptures, an underground gallery, and the curative dry-air environment that makes the cave a popular site for respiratory-health treatments.

The salt mine is on the UNESCO Tentative List in the wider category of historic salt-mining landscapes. The carved-stone Roma Kaya Mezarı (Roman rock tombs) in the same area date to the 1st–2nd century CE and reflect the long Roman-period exploitation of the same deposit.

vii.The Republic and the Modern Province

Republican Çankırı has been a steady, small province. Under the TÜİK 2024 address-based registration count the province population is approximately 187,000. The metropolitan municipality covers twelve districts. The central Merkez (~99,000) carries over half the provincial population; the secondary centres are Çerkeş (~17,000) on the road to Kastamonu, Ilgaz (~14,000) at the foot of Ilgaz Dağı, Şabanözü with the modern industrial zone, and the small rural districts of Atkaracalar, Bayramören, Eldivan, Kızılırmak, Korgun, Kurşunlu, Orta, and Yapraklı. The provincial economy continues to rest on agriculture (wheat, barley, sugar-beet), on the salt mine, and on the developing Ilgaz Dağı winter-sports tourism. The province is the seat of Çankırı Karatekin Üniversitesi (founded 2007).

viii.What to See, in Order

The walking shape of historic Çankırı is small. From the central Cumhuriyet Meydanı the route runs to the Ulu Camii (16th c.), the small Taş Mescit (13th c. Seljuk), the Çankırı Kalesi on the rocky outcrop above the town, and the Çankırı Müzesi with the regional archaeological and ethnographic collections. The principal day excursion is to the Tuz Mağarası at Balıbağı, ten minutes east of the city centre, for the underground gallery tour and the small museum of mining tools.

For the wider province, the principal natural site is the Ilgaz Dağı Milli Parkı on the northern boundary — a designated national park since 1976, with the Ilgaz ski centre at 1,800 metres and the long wooded ridge running east-west. The small Seljuk-period rock-cut sites at Kurşunlu and the medieval mound of Çerkeş are the smaller excursions.

The small province at the salt heart of Paphlagonia — Gangra of the Iron Age kings, Roman Germanicopolis, and the underground salt city of five thousand years.

For the parallel northern Anatolian provinces, see Kastamonu (the larger Candaroğlu centre to the north) and Ankara (the Galatian provincial capital to the south). For Türkiye's central plateau in the wider sense, visit our sister site CountryOfTurkey.com.