Beautiful Villages in Turkey: Anatolia is a fascinating piece of land that has the most stories in the world and has been inhabited throughout history. We have villages that are built among the mountains and hills that decorate the Anatolian geography, on the plains or by the sea, trying to attract our attention with their stories. Our villages, many of which appear plain and in their own right, offer you their stories and riches when you dig deeper.
You Need Vision 10 Beautiful Villages in Turkey:
10. Mustafapaşa Village, Cappadocia
Beautiful Villages in Turkey: Only 5 km from Ürgüp, Mustafapaşa Village, also known as Sinasos, was a place where Turks and Orthodox Greeks lived together until 1924. Being one of the best examples of Cappadocia texture, the village has witnessed closely one of the important events of the recent Anatolian history, the population exchange.
Mustafapaşa, which is one of the least degraded places in Cappadocia and where the people who immigrated from Thessaloniki live, has a church and a mosque on one side and fairy chimneys right next to it.
9 . Harran, Urfa
Historical Harran, located 44 km southeast of Şanlıurfa, is a rare place in the world, especially as the architecture of its houses. The place, which means intersecting roads in Sumerian, was an important center of Paganism, where celestial bodies were regarded as sacred in the Assyrian and Babylonian periods.
The conical domed houses, the symbol of Harran, are said to have inspired the Trulli houses in the Puglia Region of Italy. The city walls, the inner castle from the Umayyad period, the ruins of the Ulu Mosque, one of the first mosques in Anatolia, and the holy well are some of the places to see.
8. Fighting, Halfeti
The Savaşan Village under the Euphrates, which was flooded by Birecik Dam, was remembered with its minaret rising from the dam lake. The village, with its mosque and school underwater, is now abandoned.
Houses with beautiful views of the Euphrates River and beautiful stonework stand empty today. The warring villagers moved to their new village, which was built a little higher. Savaşan is located 120 kilometers from Şanlıurfa and 50 kilometers from Gaziantep.
7. Yaniklar Village, Fethiye
Yanıklar Village, which is 15 km away from Fethiye, is a natural paradise with Anatolian Sığla trees unique to Muğla region in the world, ebullient streams, citrus gardens, Karaot Akgöl, which is the accommodation area of many birds, and its surroundings.
Fethiye Yanıklar Village is located 45 km from Dalaman Airport, between Göcek and Fethiye. On the one hand, the Mediterranean and its beaches, on the other hand, lush citrus groves and lush mountains are like an idyllic picture. My accommodation advice: Yonca Lodge or Pastoral Valley.
6. Lübbey Village, Odemis
Lübbey is an Aegean village that was emptied by immigration about 30 years ago and almost turned into a ghost place. Today, the number of permanent residents in the village does not exceed 10. Lübbey, a village at an altitude of five hundred meters in the Küçük Menderes basin, at the foot of Bozdağ, is trying to exist with the abandoned houses, many of them destroyed, and the last residents who did not leave them.
5. Çamlıbel Village, Edremit
Beautiful Villages in Turkey: The village of Çamlıbel, which has a magnificent view with its back to the Kaz Mountain, is a village in Edremit Balıkesir. The village, which is also the village of the master artist Tuncel Kurtiz, surrounded by olive trees, has been moved to the slope due to the attacks of the pirates in the past. The place, which was once called Tahtaköy, later got this new name.
After the immigration of the Greeks, people from Lesbos, Crete, and Thessaloniki settled here. The regional geography is one of the places with the cleanest air in the country with its exquisite nature and rich vegetation. There are waterfalls, streams, valleys, national parks around, and the bay and beaches opposite. Accommodation advice: Albatross Mountain Houses.
4. Yoruk Village, Safranbolu
Safranbolu, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, is one of the most special and favorite places in our country. Safranbolu is a place to be discovered not only with its beautiful houses but also with its many riches. One of them is Yörük Village, which is located 20 km east of the district, and its centuries-old texture is preserved as it is.
Narrow streets, balconied houses, surrounded by gardens of the fence, with the restored home of the most beautiful villages in Turkey by me in. Around 240 people live in 62 of the never-abandoned houses of the 140-house village. The people of the village await their guests with home baklava, local delicacies, and souvenirs.
3. Birgi, Odemis
Birgi, a village of Ödemiş, 110 km from İzmir, seems to be hidden in lush geography on the cool slopes of Bozdağlar. It is almost like an open-air museum with its stone-walled, Turkish-style-tiled houses and wooden windows that can be seen through centuries-old plane and pine trees.
Birgi, which was the capital of the Turkmen Principality founded by Aydınoğlu Mehmet Bey in 1308, is a village worth seeing with its old mansions, madrasahs, tombs, and mosques.
2nd Kayaköy, Fethiye
Beautiful Villages in Turkey: Kayaköy, with its history dating back to 30,000 BC, is an impressive place with its architectural structure, narrow streets, churches, and nature. When the villagers of the place, which is an old Greek village with its stone houses lined up so as not to block each other’s sun along the slope, migrated to Greece by exchange, Turkish families from western Thrace settled in its place. However, the arrivals could not get used to their village houses and moved to the plain.
When I visited it years ago, it was a place that was abandoned in ruins, with no signs of life. It is said that the village, which has started to revive nowadays, was once a place with a population of 25,000 and even publishes local newspapers. To go to Kayaköy, follow the Karymlassos sign when you come to Hisaronu from Fethiye towards Ölüdeniz. Accommodation advice: Oyster Residence.
one Old Datca, Mugla
Beautiful Villages in Turkey: Old Datça, one of the first places to come to mind when you think of how the Mediterranean Village can be, is a place to be discovered with its stone houses decorated with bougainvillea trees, beautiful streets, and a peaceful atmosphere. Although it is a small square, consisting of a few streets, it has an enveloping atmosphere. The old houses in the place identified with the poet Can Yücel, whose name we love, are gradually being restored by their new owners. It is progressing slowly towards becoming the Alaçatı of the future, we hope it will not be overwhelmed by daily vacationers in the future. My accommodation advice in Datça: Villa Aşina.
Some of the villages have now been removed from the village character according to the new local administration laws, and many of them have perhaps become towns or neighborhoods. Well, these are still villages in my eyes. We have many beautiful villages to add to the list; Adrasan, Gölyazı, Şirince, Doğanbey, Adatepe , Mordoğan, Eskihisar, Bademli, Yesilyurt, Kapıkırı, Faralya, Uzuncaburç , Kozbeyli, Dalyanköy, Akyaka, Tahtakuşlar , Cumalıkızık, Taraklı, Uzungöl, Tirilye and hundreds more…
I will continue to grow the villages I visit, love and photograph, by bringing them to this list.
Isn’t it time to free our tourism or holiday habits from the vicious cycle of sea, sun, and sand, go on cultural trips and discover the beauties of our country?
Turkey’s most beautiful villages, which you recommended?
