İskenderun

İskenderun

Understand Nihal Atakaş Mosque This is one of many cities named for Alexander the Great; he and his successors subdued vast swathes of Asia and North Africa. It stands on the coast at the foot of a pass through the mountains towards Antakya and Syria, and in 333 BC Alexander was victorious at the Battle of Issus somewhere on the plains on the other side. Medieval travellers called the city Alexandretta, the smaller one, to distinguish it from its greater namesake in Egypt. The Ottomans conquered the region of Hatay in the 15th century, but after the First World War this was initially not incorporated into the new Republic of Turkey, but awarded to the victors France. It remained part of French Syria till 1938, was briefly independent, then was absorbed into Turkey. The city has long been industrial, with grimy petrochemical plants and steelworks in its north suburbs. The 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has its climactic scenes supposedly in Hatay during independence, but the location scouts took one look at…

Source: Wikivoyage · CC BY-SA 4.0.