Western Anatolia is a region forming the western third of Central Anatolia.

Cities

• 🌍 Afyonkarahisar (also known as Afyon) — a traditional city with an impressive hilltop citadel
• 🌍 Eskişehir — a fairly liberal riverside university town with plenty of artwork scattered along its streets and a beautiful old town
• 🌍 Kütahya — a town famous for its tile/faience tradition since Ottoman times; the hub for visiting the Temple of Zeus in Aizonai
• 🌍 Sandıklı — a town notable for its hot springs
• 🌍 Simav — another town with a notable set of hot springs
• 🌍 Sivrihisar — a small town with a grand mosque listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Other destinations

• 🌍 Aizanoi (Çavdarhisar) — if you're around, the immense Temple of Zeus of this ancient city is well worth a visit
• 🌍 Phrygian Valley — an unofficial name for the rocky countryside between Eskişehir, Kütahya, and Afyonkarahisar, scattered by numerous striking Phrygian rock-cut tombs and other sites

Understand

Western Anatolia is a transitionary area between the coastal Marmara, Aegean regions and the tree-poor steppelands of the inland Anatolian plateau.

The region forms the heartland of ancient Phrygia. Few people have never heard about at least one of the Gordian Knot, Midas "the Golden Touch", Phrygian cap, and Phrygian mode, but the Phrygians mostly remain a mystery except that they arrived in this area around 1200 BCE (likely from the Balkans), spoke an Indo-European language and wrote it in an alphabet superficially similar to the Greek one.

Get in

Highways arrive from all directions, as do railways. The high-speed railway makes a dash only for Eskişehir as of 2023, but the line to Izmir under construction will also connect Afyon to the network. The airports near Eskişehir and Kütahya are of little use as they welcome very few flights.

Get around

See

• Most regional towns have renovated historic quarters.
• Phrygian ruins are mostly clustered in the triangular area between Eskişehir, Kütahya, and Afyonkarahisar known as the "Phrygian Valley".

Do

• The area is rich in hot springs; many Turkish baths in the towns take advantage of them.
• The Phrygian Way is a hiking trail extending over much of the region. It has three legs converging on the Phrygian monument at Yazılıkaya.

Eat

• This is the only area where opium is legally cultivated in Turkey, and crushed poppy seeds are a common ingredient in local pastries.

Drink

Stay safe

Go next

• North Central Anatolia to the north and east (including the Phrygian capital of Gordion just across the Sakarya River)
• The Lakes District to the south
• Central Aegean to the southwest
• Eastern Marmara to the northwest