HATAY is an exhaustible treasure house of
history and a centre of civilization.
Hatay is a border province of Turkey
located at the eastern end of the country’s Mediterranean Region between the
mountains of Syria and Amanos Mountains. Surrounded by the Amanos Mountains
running from north to southwest, Mount Kel (Keldag) and the Syrian plateaus,
the province’s fertile Amik Plain skirts the heights in a long strip on the
western side.
A Mediterranean climate prevails in Hatay;
the summers are hot and dry and the winters are mild and rainy. There are
extensive forests of predominantly juniper, oak, beach, cornelian cherry ,
poplar and plane; in addition, there are also many areas of maquis thick with
myrtle, laurel, oregano and lavender.
The province’s chief sources of water are
the Asi, Afrin and Karasu rivers.Two dams, the Tahtakopru and Yarseli , store
water for irrigation purposes.
Hatay is an inexhaustible treasure-house of
history and a centre of civilization. The evidence of the earliest settlement
extends back as far as the Epipaleolithic Period (40.000-9.000 BC) and can be
seen in the caves found in Samandag- Cevlik, Antakya-Senkoy and
Yayladag-Ucagizli. From 9000 BC onward, Hatay was controlled successively by
the Akkadians, the Hurrians, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Persians, the
Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Byzantines, the Seljuks, the Crusaders,
the Mamluks and the Ottomans. In 1939, it became a province of the Republic of
Turkey.
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