Hatay is a province of southern Turkey, on the Mediterranean coast, with Syria to the south and east.

Geography

46% of the land is mountain, 33% plain and 20% plateau and hillside. The most prominent feature is the north-south leading Nur Mountains and the highest peak is Mığırtepe (2240m), other peaks include Ziyaret dağı and Keldağ (Jebel Akra or Casius) at 1739 m. The folds of land that make up the landscape of the province were formed as the land masses of Arabian-Nubian Shield and Anatolia have pushed into each other, meeting here in Hatay, a classic example of the Horst-graben formation. The Orontes River rises in the Bekaa Valley in K Lebanon and runs through Syria and Hatay and into the Mediterranean at its delta in Samandağ. There was a lake in the plain of Amik but this was drained in the 1970s, and today Amik is now the largest of the plains that are important centres of agricultural production in Hatay. The climate of Hatay is typical of the Mediterranean, with warm wet winters and hot, dry summers. The mountain areas inland are drier than the coast. There are some mineral deposits, Iskenderun is home to Turkey’s largest iron and steel plant, and the district of Yayladağı produces a colourful marble called the Rose of Hatay.

Hatay is one of the most cosmopolitan provinces of Turkey, home to communities of various races and religions including Turks, Arabs and Armenians, Sunni and Alevi Muslims and Christians of many demoninations. The village of “Vakıflıköy” in the district of Samandağ is Turkey’s last remaining rural Armenian community while Arabs form the majority in three districts out of the twelve in Hatay: Samandağ (Suwaidiyyah) (Alawi), Altınözü (Qusair) and Reyhanlı (Rihaniyyah) (Sunni). Unlike most Mediterranean provinces Hatay has not experienced mass immigration from other parts of Turkey in recent decades and has therefore preserved much of its traditional culture, for example Arabic is still widely spoken in the province. To celebrate this cultural mix, in 2005 “Hatay Meeting of Civilisations” congress was organised by Dr Aydın Bozkurt of Mustafa Kemal University and his “Hatay Association for the Protection of Universal Values”.

Hatay is warm enough to grow tropical crops such as sweet potato and sugar cane, and these are used in the local cuisine, along with other local specialities including a type of cucumber/squash called kitte. Well-known dishes of Hatay include the syrupy-pastry künefe, squash cooked in onions and tomato paste (sıhılmahsi}, the aubergine and yoghurt paste (Baba ghanoush), and the chick-pea paste hummus as well as dishes such as kebab which are found throughout Turkey. In general the people of Hatay produce lots of spicy dishes including the walnut and spice paste muhammara), the spicy köfte called oruk, the thyme and parsley paste Za’atar and the spicy sun-dried cheese called Surke. Finally syrup of pomegranate is a popular salad dressing particular to this area.

Mustafa Kemal University is one of Turkey’s newer tertiary institutions, founded in Antakya in 1992.

Districts

Hatay province is divided into 12 districts (capital district in bold):

* Altınözü
* Antakya
* Belen
* Dörtyol
* Erzin
* Hassa
* İskenderun
* Kırıkhan
* Kumlu
* Reyhanlı
* Samandağ
* Yayladağı

History Antiquity

See Antioch for the ancient history of this town and district. With its easy climate, fertile soil this crossing point between Syria and Anatolia is one of the longest-established areas in the region, settled since the early Bronze age, once part of the Akkadian Empire, then the Amorite Kingdom of Yamhad, then a succession of Hittites, the late-Hittite “Hattena” people that later gave the modern province of Hatay its name, then Assyrians, Persians and many more until the city of Antioch became and important regional centre of the Roman Empire from 64BC onwards.

The arrival of Islam

The area was conquered by the armies of Islam in 638 and came under the control of the Ummayad and Abbasid Arab dynasties. Then following the first Turkish conquest by the Tolunoğulları tribe in 877 Hatay was controlled by various Turkish emirates, under the umbrella of the Seljuks and the Aleppo-based Hamdanoğulları. Then in 969 the city of Antioch played an important role in the First Crusade and was brought within the Byzantine Empire as a result. Eventually Hatay was capture.