Turkey: Exploring Ankara

Ankara reminded be a lot of Sacramento, though Brasilia (a place I have never been) may be a better analogy. If you look at the other countries I have visited and ask "why is their capital where it is?" it is not hard to come up with an explanation for Moscow or Berlin.

But Ankara, why is Ankara Turkey's capital? As you have no doubt already deduced from previous posts, for most of the history of Turks in Anatolia, Istanbul was the capital. Istanbul is at the strategic crossroads of two continents and has been at the center of history for thousands of years.

And Ankara? It is kind of in the middle of nowhere - kind of like Sacramento - and sometimes the middle of nowhere is exactly where you want to be. At least that is where Atatürk wanted to be. You have to remember that Turkey (as such) did not exist before Atatürk’s revolution.

The land mass that would become Turkey was part of the Ottoman Empire. With the demise of that empire, large slices of territory were shaved off by European powers for their own purposes. Turkey had no long-recognized borders. Istanbul was on its fringe and potentially vulnerable. Ankara was in the center, geographically sheltered, it was a more secure place to build a government. So that’s where Atatürk built his government.

He also built the city. Like Sacramento, if you took the government away there would not be a lot left. As Turkey is less than 100 years old, so is most of Ankara. There's not a lot of ancient architecture. Ankara is a clean, modern government center. Except for the government it is not at all that exciting.