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Fertile Plain in Turkey
Photo: Worldisblack, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The Cilician Plains, or Çukurova in Turkish, is a region on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. It's ringed by the pine-clad Taurus Mountains dropping sharply to a pancake-flat, sticky-hot agricultural land. Here and there are rocky outcrops topped by Crusader-era castles, remote Hittite sites and early Christian landmarks, but the most part it's modern, intensively farmed and industrial.
Cities such as Adana sprawl but their sights are usually in a walkable historic area.
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Tarsus · International · COV
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Adana is a city on the Cilician Plains of central Turkey, on the Seyhan River about 50 km from the Mediterranean coast. It's industrial and mostly modern but with several places of interest in its historic centre.
Karaisalı is a village in the mountains north of the Cilician Plains, with a population of 1200 in 2022. The main highway through the Taurus mountains goes via Pozantı then descends to the plains - sights along it are described on that page.
Pozantı is a town at the north edge of the Cilician Plains, astride the main pass through the Taurus Mountains. Together with its associated villages it had a population of 20,000 in 2022.
Mersin is a city on the Cilician Plains of Mediterranean Turkey, with a population of 1,100,000 in 2025. Another million live in the rest of Mersin Province, and it's almost merged into a single huge conurbation with Tarsus and Adana to the east.
Osmaniye is a city in the Cilician Plains of Turkey, with a population of 252,000 in 2022. The city has few visitor attractions but it serves as a good base to explore outlying sites in the countryside.
Tarsus is a city on the Çukurova or Cilician Plains of Mediterranean Turkey, with a population of 631,000 in 2022. It's modern and industrial, hosting the regional airport, but with a few antiquities.
Yumurtalık is a beach resort on the Cilician Plains of Turkey. It's 40 km southeast of Adana, and about the most easterly resort on the Mediterranean coast, before that coast turns a corner and trends south all the way to Egypt.
Osmaniye is a city in the Cilician Plains of Turkey, with a population of 252,000 in 2022. The city has few visitor attractions but it serves as a good base to explore outlying sites in the countryside.
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