Turkish cities, found on the map

Forty-one dots and no labels: every place over 150,000 people, thinned so no two sit close enough to be one question with two answers. The provinces are gone from this map, so the coastline, the straits and the lake in the east are all there is to go on.

41 to find, 8 a run.

6 rounds, 6 of 8 to pass each. Pass one and its places are yours.

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41 cities · 6 regions

What the map tells you about each one

The paragraph the game shows when you find a place, for the 16 of the 41 that have one. Reading them first is not cheating.

Marmara5 on the map

Bursa: Bursa was the first Ottoman capital, taken in 1326, and the early sultans are buried there. It sits under Uludağ, a mountain of 2,543 meters that is the country’s main ski resort. The city was the end of the silk road’s western branch and still makes textiles, along with much of the country’s car industry.
İstanbul: İstanbul has around 15 million people, roughly a fifth of the country. The Bosphorus running through it is about 700 meters across at its narrowest, and three suspension bridges and a rail tunnel under the seabed now cross it. Hagia Sophia, finished in 537, had the largest dome in the world for nearly a thousand years.
İzmit: İzmit was Nicomedia, capital of the eastern Roman empire under Diocletian from 286 until Constantine moved the seat west. It sits directly on the North Anatolian Fault, and the earthquake of 17 August 1999 is named for it. The gulf it stands on is the industrial heart of the country.

Also on the mapAdapazarı · Balıkesir

Aegean Türkiye7 on the map

İzmir: İzmir has about 3 million people and is the country’s second port after İstanbul. Its waterfront promenade, the Kordon, runs several kilometers along the gulf. Ephesus, which had perhaps 200,000 people under Rome and held the Temple of Artemis, is an hour south of it.

Also on the mapAfyonkarahisar · Aydın · Denizli · Kütahya · Manisa · Uşak

Mediterranean Türkiye7 on the map

Adana: Adana sits on the Çukurova, the alluvial plain that was ancient Cilicia and is the country’s cotton belt. The Roman stone bridge over the Seyhan, built in the second century, carried traffic until 2007. The city is known nationally for a long, hot kebab that carries its name.
Antakya: Antakya was Antioch, founded around 300 BC and at its height one of the largest cities in the Roman empire. It sits on the fault that runs down through the Levant, and the earthquake of February 2023 destroyed much of the old city and killed tens of thousands across the region.
Antalya: Antalya is the center of the country’s tourist industry and one of the most visited cities in the world by international arrivals. The old town sits above a Roman harbor behind Hadrian’s Gate, built for the emperor’s visit in 130, and the Taurus mountains rise straight out of the coastal strip behind it.
Mersin: Mersin has the largest container port on the Mediterranean coast of the country. It was called İçel until 2002, when city and province both took the name of the town. The Cilician Gates, the pass through the Taurus that every army from Alexander onward used to enter Anatolia from the south, are north of it.

Also on the mapİskenderun · Isparta · Kahramanmaraş

Central Anatolia6 on the map

Ankara: Ankara sits at about 940 meters and has a dry continental climate: hot summers, snow in winter, and little rain either way. Atatürk’s mausoleum, Anıtkabir, stands on a hill over the city and was finished in 1953. The city grew from about 75,000 people in 1927 to over five million.
Konya: Konya sits at about 1,000 meters on a plain so flat and dry that most of the country’s wheat comes from around it. Rumi died here in 1273 and his tomb under a turquoise cone is one of the most visited places in the country. Çatalhöyük, a settlement of about 7500 BC, is 50 kilometers southeast.

Also on the mapEskişehir · Kayseri · Kırıkkale · Sivas

Black Sea Türkiye6 on the map

Samsun: Atatürk landed at Samsun on 19 May 1919, which is counted as the start of the war of independence and is still a national holiday. The city sits between the deltas of the country’s two long northern rivers, the Kızılırmak and the Yeşilırmak, on the widest stretch of the Black Sea coastal plain.
Trabzon: Trabzon is hemmed between the sea and the Pontic mountains, which rise to over 3,000 meters within 50 kilometers of the shore and catch enough rain to keep the slopes green all year. The Sumela monastery, built into a cliff face at about 1,200 meters, is an hour south of the city.

Also on the mapÇorum · Ordu · Rize · Zonguldak

Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia10 on the map

Diyarbakır: Diyarbakır is walled in black basalt for about 5.8 kilometers, a circuit second in length only to the Great Wall among ancient walls still standing. It is the largest Kurdish-majority city in the country. The Hevsel gardens between the walls and the river have been cultivated for some eight thousand years.
Erzurum: Erzurum sits at 1,900 meters, the highest large city in the country, and is cold enough that its winters regularly reach minus 20 degrees Celsius. It hosted the 2011 Winter Universiade. The congress held there in July 1919 was the first of the two that launched the war of independence.
Gaziantep: Gaziantep is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the region and is known for pistachios and baklava. Its Zeugma museum holds mosaics rescued in 2000 from a Roman city that was flooded by a dam on the Euphrates; the best known of them is a woman’s face called the Gypsy Girl.
Van: Van is at about 1,750 meters and the lake beside it never freezes because of the salt in it. The Akdamar church on an island offshore, built between 915 and 921, is carved on the outside with figures from the Old Testament, which is rare for a building of its age and place.

Also on the mapAdıyaman · Batman · Elazığ · Malatya · Nusaybin · Şanlıurfa

Now find all 41 on the map

How this one works

How many cities are on the map?

41. Every one of them is on the map, and a run asks 8 of them. Pass a round and the places you found in it drop out of the pool, so the next run is what you have left.

What is a round?

A run of 8 questions, and 6 right passes it. 6 rounds cover the whole map, and the counter at the top of the Türkiye page counts the ones behind you. Passing is what banks a round's finds: miss the mark and nothing is taken off the map, so every place that round asked about is still there to be asked again. A round is always the places you have not found yet, and when fewer than five are left it is topped up with a few you have found as review, so the last round is never one or two questions. Three quarters of it passes it.

Can I start the map over?

Yes. "Reset this map" under the counter puts all 41 back in the pool and sets the rounds to zero the moment you press it, so the whole map is there to be found again from nothing. It clears this map only; the other maps of Türkiye keep their progress.

Do I need an account?

No. The game plays in the page, and a guest's progress is kept in their own browser. Signing in carries it between devices and earns XP for a run.

What happens when I get one wrong?

The map names what you actually hit, then lights up the right answer in green and tells you something about the place. Missing one is how most of this map gets learned.

The other maps of Türkiye

Turkish provinces81 to find Turkish waters22 to find

The same map for other countries

North America

Oceania

South America

All of Türkiye’s maps together on the Türkiye atlas page, the country itself on the Türkiye guide, and the other two hundred on the world map.