Sanliurfa

Şanlıurfa exists because agriculture began. This southeastern province contains Göbeklitepe, the 12,000-year-old temple complex that predates pottery, domesticated plants, and everything we thought triggered civilization. The discovery upended archaeological orthodoxy: religion came before farming, not after. Ground zero of human history is not a metaphor here—it's a GPS coordinate.

The city controlled a strategic pass between Anatolia and Mesopotamia since before writing existed. Known as Urhai in Aramaic, then Edessa after Alexander's successors refounded it in the 3rd century BCE, it accumulated layers of sacred significance. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all claim connections: Abraham, Job, Jethro, and Noah are associated with sites here. The "City of Prophets" label reflects genuine religious geography, not tourism marketing.

Modern Şanlıurfa—Turkey's seventh-largest province by area with 2.2 million people—metabolizes through the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP). The Atatürk Dam, fourth-largest in the world, transformed the region: irrigation expanded dramatically across 4.9% of Turkey's agricultural land, now producing wheat, barley, lentils, cotton, sesame, and pistachios. Agriculture still accounts for 43% of provincial GDP, but textiles, food processing, and plastics manufacturing now employ 16% of the workforce.

By 2026, Şanlıurfa's trajectory depends on water and borders. The Euphrates sustains the GAP infrastructure, but upstream Turkish dams create tensions with Syria and Iraq. The province's location "facilitates exports to the Middle East"—another diplomatic circumlocution meaning that stability in Aleppo and Mosul matters more than any policy made in Ankara.