Wan (Van)

Population

500,000

Coordinates

38.501°, 43.415°

Region

Turkey

Views

A sea city on the shore of the largest lake in Turkey, capital of northeastern Kurdistan.

The city's history

Wan (Van)

Van is an ancient city, capital of the kingdom of Urartu in the ninth century BC. For centuries it had a rich diversity of population: Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians and Turks. In 1915 it suffered a tragic Armenian genocide. Today its population is overwhelmingly Kurdish, and it is the capital of northeastern Kurdistan. It looks out over Lake Van — the largest lake in Turkey — and holds the historic Van Citadel and the tenth-century Armenian monastery of Akhtamar. The Yüzüncü Yıl University is the regional centre of learning.

On the map

Other cities in Turkey

Turkey

Amed (Diyarbakır)

The throbbing heart of northern Kurdistan and its spiritual capital. Amed looks down on the Tigris from a basalt plateau, ringed by a black stone wall that is, after the Great Wall of China, the longest in the world. The city is nicknamed the Black Lily, so much do its walls and terraces — built from black basalt — make of it a sombre kind of beauty.

Population · 1,700,000