Van

Van exists because Lake Van exists. Turkey's largest lake—3,755 square kilometers of saline soda water at 1,640 meters elevation—created an oasis in the Armenian highlands where civilization could concentrate. The Urartians made Van their capital in the 9th century BCE, carving cuneiform inscriptions into rock and building canals that still exist. For three millennia, whoever controlled Van controlled the eastern approaches to Anatolia.

The city's layered history reads like a geological core sample. Urartians, Medes, Persians, Pontus kings, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Seljuks, and Ottomans each left deposits. But the most significant layer is absence: before World War I, Van had 30,000 Armenian inhabitants out of 50,000 total. The province was one of six Armenian vilayets, home to the Kingdom of Vaspurakan, dotted with monasteries like the 10th-century Holy Cross Cathedral on Akdamar Island. Today, the Armenian population has vanished—Van is predominantly Kurdish, and the demographic erasure of 1915 defines what the province is not.

Modern Van (population 525,016 in 2022) trades regional products—skins, grains, fruits, vegetables—while Lake Van supports growing tourism. The 10th-century cathedral on Akdamar Island, with its intricate stone carvings, draws visitors who photograph Armenian heritage in a province where Armenians no longer live. This is not irony but the economic logic of preserved ruins.

By 2026, Van's trajectory depends on borders and memory. Air services from Ankara and Istanbul make tourism accessible; the lake's strategic position near Iran and Anatolia sustains trade potential. But the province carries historical weight that shapes its identity more than any GDP figure. What Van was determines how the world sees what Van is.