Kayseri


Kayseri is a large city in Central Anatolia, Turkey, and the capital of Kayseri province. Historically known as Caesarea, it has been the historical capital of Cappadocia since ancient times. The Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality area is composed of five districts: the two central districts of Kocasinan and Melikgazi, and since 2004, also outlying Hacılar, İncesu, and Talas.
As of 31 December 2024, the province had a population of 1 452 458 of whom 1 210 983 lived in the four urban districts, excluding İncesu which is not conurbated, meaning it is not contiguous and has a largely non-protected buffer zone.
Kayseri sits at the foot of Mount Erciyes, a dormant volcano that reaches an altitude of, more than 1,500 metres above the city's mean altitude. It contains a number of historic monuments, particularly from the Seljuk period. Tourists often pass through Kayseri en route to the attractions of Cappadocia to the west. Kayseri is known for local dishes such as sucuk, pastırma, and mantı, which are commonly associated with the region.
Kayseri is served by Erkilet International Airport and is home to Erciyes University.

Etymology

Kayseri has been equated with the early Hittite kingdom of Kussara, referenced sporadically in early Assyrian trading records. It was called Mazaka or Mazaca and was known as such to the geographer Strabo, during whose time it was the capital of the Roman province of Cappadocia, known also as Eusebia at the Argaeus, after Ariarathes V Eusebes, King of Cappadocia.
In 14 AD its name was changed by Archelaus, the last King of Cappadocia and a Roman vassal, to "Caesarea in Cappadocia" in honour of Caesar Augustus upon his death. This name was rendered as Καισάρεια in Koine Greek, the dialect of the later Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, and it remained in use by the natives until their expulsion from Turkey in 1924., and the Turks, who gave the city its current name Kayseri ).

History

Kayseri experienced three golden ages. The first, dating to 2000 BC, was when the city formed a trade post between the Assyrians and the Hittites. The second came under Roman rule from the 1st to the 11th centuries. The third golden age was during the reign of the Seljuks, when the city was the second capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum.

Ancient history

As Mazaca, the city served as the residence of the kings of Cappadocia. In ancient times, it was on the crossroads of the trade routes from Sinope to the Euphrates and from the Persian Royal Road that extended from Sardis to Susa during the 200+ years of Achaemenid Persian rule. In Roman times, a similar route from Ephesus to the East also crossed the city.
In Late Antiquity, the city may have contained a population of around 50,000 inhabitants and it was the highest ranked diocese up to the council of Chalcedon. Nothing remains of it today.
Basil of Caesarea, one of the Cappadocian Fathers, established a large complex containing charitable institutions, a monastery and churches, the Basiliad, in Caesarea Mazaca in the fourth century. Nothing remains of it today.
The city was also situated on the main pilgrimage route from Constantinople to the Holy Land and had several shrines dedicated to local saints, such as St Mamas, St Merkourious and Basil of Caesarea, which continued to be venerated by the local population into the 17th century. The city was occupied by the Sassanids in 611/12 in the [Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628|last war between the Byzantines and the Sassanids] and became the headquarter of emperor Heraclius.
The city stood on a low spur on the north side of Mount Erciyes. Very few traces of the ancient site now survive.

Medieval history

From the mid-seventh century onwards, Arab attacks on Cappadocia and Caesarea became common and the city was besieged several times, diminishing in population and resources consequently. The Arab general, and later the first Umayyad Caliph, Muawiyah invaded Cappadocia and took Caesarea from the Byzantines temporarily in 647. By the mid-eight century, the area between Caesarea and Melitene was a no-mans land.
File:Kayseri-Huant-Hatun-Mosque2-Verity-Cridland.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Detail from the Seljuk Sultanate|Seljuk]-era Hunat Hatun Mosque, built in 1238 for Sultana Hunat Hatun, wife of Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I and mother of Sultan Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II.
File:Sahabiye medresesi.JPG|thumb|Walls of the Seljuk era Sahabiye Medresesi, built in 1267 by the Seljuk vizier Sahip Ata Fahreddin Ali.
Though the city lost most of its importance by the tenth century, it probably still housed around 50,000 people. Alp Arslan's forces demolished the city and massacred its population in 1067. The shrine of Saint Basil was also sacked after the fall of the city. As a result, the city remained uninhabited for the next half century.
From 1074 to 1178 the area was under the control of the Danishmendids who rebuilt the city in 1134. The Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate controlled the city from 1178 to 1243 and it was one of their most important centres until it fell to the Mongols in 1243. The relatively short Seljuk period left a large number of historic landmarks including the Hunat Hatun Complex, the Kiliç Arslan Mosque, the Ulu Camii and the Gevher Nesibe Hastanesi. Within the walls lies the greater part of Kayseri, rebuilt between the 13th and 16th centuries. The city then fell to the Eretnids before finally becoming Ottoman in 1515. It was the centre of a sanjak called initially the Rum Eyalet and then the Angora vilayet.

Modern era

The Grand Bazaar dates from the latter part of the 1800s, but the adjacent caravanserai, where merchant traders gathered before forming a caravan, dates from around 1500. The town's older districts which were filled with ornate mansion-houses mostly dating from the 18th and 19th centuries were subjected to wholesale demolition starting in the 1970s.
The building that hosted the Kayseri Lyceum was rearranged to host the Turkish Grand National Assembly during the Turkish War of Independence when the Greek army was advancing on Ankara, the base of the Turkish National Movement.

Geography

Climate

Kayseri has a humid continental climate. It experiences cold, snowy winters and hot, dry summers with cool nights. Precipitation occurs throughout the year, albeit with a marked decrease in late summer and early fall.

Districts

The city of Kayseri consists of sixteen metropolitan districts: Akkışla, Bünyan, Develi, Felâhiye, Hacılar, İncesu, Kocasinan, Melikgâzi, Özvatan, Pınarbaşı, Sarıoğlan, Sarız, Talas, Tomarza, Yahyâlı, and Yeşilhisar.

Notable sites

In Kayseri

Cumhuriyet Square is a central public space in Kayseri, surrounded by notable buildings. Inside the centre of Kayseri the most unmissable reminder of the past are the huge basalt walls that once enclosed the old city. Dating back to the sixth century and the reign of the Emperor Justinian, they have been repeatedly repaired, by the Seljuks, by the Ottomans and by the Turkish government. In 2019 Kayseri Archaeology Museum moved from an outlying location to a new site inside the walls.
The Grand Mosque was started by the Danişmend emir Melik Mehmed Gazi who is buried beside it; it was completed by the Seljuks after his death. The oldest surviving Seljuk place of worship and the oldest Seljuk mosque built in Turkey is the Hunat Hatun Mosque Complex which includes a functioning hamam with separate sections for men and women dating back to 1238.
Near the mosque is the Sahabiye Medresesi, a theological school dating back to 1267 with a portal typical of Seljuk architecture. In Mimar Sinan Park stands the Çifte Medresesi, a pair of Seljuk-era theological schools that eventually served as a hospital for those with psychiatric disorders. They were commissioned by the Seljuk sultan Giyasettin I Keyhüsrev and his sister, Gevher Nesibe Sultan, who is buried inside. The buildings house the Museum of Seljuk Civilisations.
The Seljuk Halikılıç Mosque complex has two entrance portals. It dates back to 1249 and was extensively restored three centuries later. The Güpgüpoğlu Mansion which dates back to the early 15th century is a museum with the furnishings it would have had in the late 19th century when it was home to the poet and politician Ahmed Midhad Güpgüpoğlu.
Close to the walls is Kayseri's own Kapalı Çarşı, a commercial centre. Inside it is the older Vezir Han which was commissioned in the early 18th century Damad İbrahim Paşa who was a grand vizier to Sultan Ahmed III before being assassinated in 1730.

Around Kayseri

The Kayseri suburb of Talas was the ancestral home of Calouste Gulbenkian, Aristotle Onassis and Elia Kazan. Once ruinous following the expulsion of its Armenian population in 1915 and then of its Greek population in 1923, it was largely reconstructed in the early 21st century. The Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Mary, built in 1888, has been converted into the Yaman Dede Mosque. Similarly attractive is the suburb of Germir, home to three 19th-century churches and many fine old stone houses.
Mount Erciyes looms over Kayseri and serves as a trekking and alpinism centre. During the 2010s an erstwhile small, local ski resort was developed into more of an international attraction with big-name hotels and facilities suitable for all sorts of winter pastimes.
The archaeological site of Kanesh-Kültepe, one of the oldest cities in Asia Minor, is 20 km northeast of Kayseri.
Ağırnas, a small town with many lovely old houses, was the birthplace in 1490 of the great Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, and a house traditionally associated with him is open to the public as a museum. Beneath it there is one of the 'underground cities' so typical of Cappadocia. The restored Church of Saint Procopius dates back to 1857 and serves as a cultural centre.
The small town of Develi also contains some attractive old houses. The 19th-century Armenian Church of Saint Mary has been turned into the Lower Everek Mosque.

Economy

Kayseri received notable public investments in the 1920s and 1930s. Sümer Fabric Factory and Kayseri Tayyare Fabrikası were set up here in the Republican Era with the help of German and particularly Russian experts. The latter manufactured the first aircraft made in Turkey in the 1940s. After the 1950s, the city suffered from a decrease in the amount of public investment. It was, however, during the same years that Kayseri businessmen and merchants transformed themselves into rural capitalists. Members of Turkish business families such as Sabancı, Has, Dedeman, Hattat, Kurmel, Özyeğin and Özilhan started out as small-scale merchants in Kayseri before becoming prominent actors in the Turkish economy. Despite setting up their headquarters in cities such as Istanbul and Adana, they often returned to Kayseri to invest.
Thanks to the economic liberalisation policies introduced in the 1980s, a new wave of merchants and industrialists from Kayseri joined their predecessors. Most of these new industrialists choose Kayseri as a base of their operations. As a consequence of better infrastructure, the city has achieved remarkable industrial growth since 2000, causing it to be described as one of Turkey's Anatolian Tigers.
The pace of growth of the city was so fast that in 2004 the city applied to the Guinness Book of World Records for the most new manufacturing industries started in a single day: 139 factories. Kayseri also has emerged as one of the most successful furniture-making hub in Turkey earned more than a billion dollars in export revenues in 2007. Its environment is regarded as especially favourable for small and medium enterprises.
Kayseri Free Zone established in 1998 now has more than 43 companies with an investment of 140 million dollars. The Zone's main business activities include production, trading, warehouse management, mounting and demounting, assembly-disassembly, merchandising, maintenance and repair, engineering workshops, office and workplace rental, packing-repacking, banking and insurance, leasing, labelling and exhibition facilities. Kayseri FTZ is one of the cheapest land free zones in the world.
A group of social scientists have examined the economic development of Kayseri, through the framework of a modernist Islamic outlook often referred to as “Islamic Calvinism.” The term draws on Max Weber’s 1905 essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which argued that the “this-worldly asceticism” of Calvinist ethics contributed to the emergence of modern capitalism. In a similar conceptual approach, scholars studying Kayseri have suggested that certain religious and cultural practices in the city encourage values such as disciplined work habits, thrift, and entrepreneurship, which they associate with local economic growth.
An op-ed in The Irish Times reported that luxury consumption appears relatively restrained and that financial resources are often directed toward long-term investment rather than visible expenditure. The piece described Kayseri’s more affluent areas as comparatively modest by European standards and noted that reinvestment in the local community is common. Philanthropy constitutes another important component of local civic life. The city is known for privately funded schools, clinics, sports facilities, and community centers, which observers associate with longstanding traditions of charitable giving in Islamic practice and with broader patterns of community-based development.

Transport

The city is served by Erkilet International Airport which is a short distance from the centre of Kayseri. It offers several flights a day to Istanbul.
Kayseri is connected to the rest of country by rail services. There are four trains a day to Ankara. To the east there are two train routes, one to Kars and the other to Tatvan at the western end of Lake Van.
As the city is located in central Turkey, road transportation is very efficient. It takes approximately three hours to reach Ankara, the same to the Mediterranean coast and 45 minutes to Cappadocia. A notable ski resort in winter and accessible for trekking in summer, Mt Erciyes is 30 minutes from the city centre.
Within the city transportation largely relies on buses and private vehicles although there is also a rail transit|light rail transit (LRT)] system called Kayseray which runs to the inter-city bus terminal and to Talas.

Sports

The city had two professional football teams competing in top-flight Turkish football. Kayserispor and Kayseri Erciyesspor simultaneously play in the Süper Lig, making Kayseri one of only two cities having more than one team in Spor Toto Süper Lig 2013–14. In 2006 Kayserispor became the only Turkish team to have won the UEFA Intertoto Cup. Kayserispor is the remaining professional team in the city, playing in the top flight as of 2023.
The Erciyes Ski Resort on Mount Erciyes is one of the largest ski resorts in Turkey.
The women's football club Kayseri Gençler Birliği was promoted to the Women's First League for the 2020–21 League season.

Sports venues

Education

Kayseri High School was founded in 1893 and is among the oldest secondary schools in Turkey. Nuh Mehmet Küçükçalık Anatolian High School, established in 1984, provides instruction in English. TED Kayseri College, founded in 1966, is a private school located in the Kocasinan district and serves students from kindergarten to high school. Middle East Technical University Development Foundation Kayseri College was established in 1999. American College">Americans">American College, established in 1889, operated as an American boarding school for many decades.
Kayseri is home to four public universities and one private university. Abdullah Gül University, established in 2010, is the first public university in Turkey with legal provisions enabling support from a philanthropic foundation dedicated to its activities. Erciyes University, founded in 1978, is the city’s largest higher education institution, comprising 13 faculties, six colleges, and seven vocational schools, with more than 3,100 staff members and 41,225 students. Nuh Naci Yazgan University, founded in 2009, is the region’s only private university. Kayseri University, established after the separation of certain academic units from Erciyes University. University of Health Sciences Kayseri Medical School provides medical training and conducts research in the health sciences.

Notable people

Kayseri metropolitan municipality mayors

Twin towns

Kayseri is twinned with: