Travel Guide Amasya

A jewel of Ottoman art, Amasya, rich with 5,000 years of history, is located at the foot of the Harşena Mountain and is one of the prettiest cities in Turkey. Thanks to its strategic position on the road from Mesopotamia to the Black Sea, it was successively the capital of the kings of Pontus in the Hellenistic period, the chief town in the Roman period, a Byzantine stronghold, the capital of the last kingdom of Armenia, a Turkish emirate and a Mongol base, before being conquered by Sultan Beyazıt I in 1392. It was finally in Amasya that Atatürk secretly began his campaign for independence in June 1919. The Ottoman houses on the banks of the Yeşilırmak create a picturesque atmosphere.