Why Ankara replaced Istanbul

An old town in Anatolia

Ankara is ancient: a Phrygian town stood there by the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, Alexander the Great took it in 333 BCE, and Augustus made it part of the Roman Empire in 25 BCE. The Ottomans captured it in 1354, and it prospered as a trading town on the caravan route east.^[1]

It lies in north-western Anatolia, about 200 km south of the Black Sea.^[1]

Istanbul occupied

When the Ottoman Empire lost the First World War, Allied troops occupied parts of Istanbul in December 1918 and set up a military administration.^[2] Mustafa Kemal and his allies planned a national movement in Anatolia centred on Ankara, and he ignored the sultan’s orders to return.^[2]

Doubting that the sultan could ever end the occupation, Kemal set up the seat of his provisional government in Ankara, 480 km from Istanbul. In March 1920 the Allies arrested nationalist sympathisers in Istanbul, and many prominent Turks fled to Ankara. A new parliament, the Grand National Assembly, met there on 23 April 1920.^[2]

The war capital

Ankara became the capital of a government at war, against the sultan’s regime and against the Greek army advancing into Anatolia.^[1] At one point the Greeks came so close that the artillery fire at the Sakarya River could be heard in the town. The Soviet Union became the first country to recognise the Ankara government, and France and Italy began to negotiate with it.^[2]

After the nationalists won, the sultanate was abolished and the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in July 1923. Nationalist troops entered Istanbul on 2 October; on 13 October Ankara was declared the capital, and on 29 October the Turkish republic was proclaimed.^[2][1]

Ankara today

Government is Ankara’s main business, though it is also Turkey’s second industrial city after Istanbul. It holds the National Library, several major universities and the huge mausoleum of Atatürk.^[1]