As the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee took place in Busan, South Korea, from July 20 to 29, 2026, the World Heritage List once again drew global attention. According to information obtained from Türkiye's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Türkiye’s UNESCO-listed ancient cities preserve the traces of thousands of years of civilizations, myths and faiths.

Archaeological site of Troy

The ancient city of Troy, immortalized in Homer's "Iliad" as the setting of the legendary Trojan War, lies in Türkiye's northwestern Çanakkale province. The archaeological site, which recently returned to the global spotlight with Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey,” was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1998, with a history dating back to around 3000 B.C.

According to legend, Dardanus was born to Zeus and Electra, the daughter of the sea god Oceanus. Dardanus' son Tros founded the land of Troas, while his son Ilus founded the city of Troy.

Mount Ida (Kaz Dağı), on whose foothills Troy was established, is also known as the place where the world's first beauty contest took place. The contestants were Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. Serving as the judge, Paris chose Aphrodite after she promised him Helen, the wife of the king of Sparta. Paris' abduction of Helen then triggered the Trojan War.

Excavations carried out at Troy since 1871 have revealed that the city was repeatedly built and destroyed throughout its history. In addition to nine settlement layers, archaeologists have uncovered 42 architectural layers. Among the remains are a theater, baths, an advanced sewage system and the foundations of monumental buildings.

Ephesus

One of the Mediterranean's greatest ancient cities, Ephesus was continuously inhabited for nearly 9,000 years, from prehistoric times through the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Beylik and Ottoman periods. Located in today's Izmir province, it served as a major port city as well as an important center of culture and trade throughout every stage of its history.

Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2015, the World Heritage Site of Ephesus features outstanding examples of architecture and urban planning from different periods, reflecting the exceptional urban development, architecture and religious history of the Hellenistic and Roman eras.

With a heritage ranging from the Artemision, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, to the Church of Mary, where the Ecumenical Council convened in A.D. 431, from the Basilica of St. John and the House of the Virgin Mary, regarded as a Christian pilgrimage site, to Islamic monuments dating to the Beylik period, Ephesus continues to stand as one of the world's unique centers where different chapters of religious history coexist.

Aphrodisias

Named after the Sanctuary of Aphrodite, the ancient city of Aphrodisias, together with its marble quarries, was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2017. Located in western Türkiye's Aydın province, Aphrodisias dates back to the fifth century B.C.

The archaeological significance of Aphrodisias lies in the exceptional state of preservation of its largely marble-built structures, along with their associated reliefs and inscriptions, which vividly illustrate the intensive exchange of ideas and values from the Late Hellenistic period through the Roman and Byzantine eras.

Between the first and fifth centuries A.D., the city became one of the Roman world's leading centers of sculpture. Its artists produced works that were exported across the empire, while the nearby marble quarries supplied the high-quality stone that made Aphrodisias famous as one of antiquity's finest schools of sculpture, while also making it one of the key sites for studying every aspect of ancient marble art and architecture.

Ancient city of Pergamon

Located atop Kale Hill in Türkiye's Izmir province, the ancient city of Pergamon represents one of the finest examples of Hellenistic urban planning with its monumental architecture. The Temple of Athena, the Temple of Trajan, the steepest theater of the Hellenistic period, the library, the Heroon, the Altar of Zeus, the Temple of Dionysus, the agora and the gymnasium are among the most distinguished examples of this planning system and the architecture of the period.

Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in the Cultural Landscape category in 2014, Pergamon was an important center of learning and served as the capital of the Hellenistic Kingdom of Pergamon. Later, as the capital of the Roman province of Asia, it was also home to the Asklepion, one of the leading healing centers of the ancient world.

Together with its surrounding cultural landscape, the city preserves numerous outstanding remains from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. It has also retained its significance through its Ottoman-era mosques, inns, baths and commercial buildings, many of which were built over layers dating to the Roman and Byzantine periods.

Sardis, the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe

Located in Manisa province, the ancient city of Sardis was the capital and the only known major city of the Lydian civilization. The Lydians, the western Anatolian civilization credited with inventing the world's first coinage, fundamentally transformed global trade and commerce.

Known for its natural beauty and fertile lands, Sardis flourished between the ninth and sixth centuries B.C. and was described by the Greek historian Polybius as "the strongest place in the world." Parts of its massive defensive walls, once 20 meters (66 feet) thick, still stand today.

Nearby, the Bin Tepe necropolis is one of the world's largest burial landscapes. Spread across roughly 7,500 hectares (18,500 acres), it contains more than 119 burial mounds dating from the sixth to fourth centuries B.C., providing exceptional evidence of Lydian funerary traditions.

Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2025, Sardis remains an active archaeological site where excavation and conservation work continues.

Xanthos-Letoon

Xanthos, home of Sarpedon, who encouraged Prince Hector with his words during the Trojan War, was the capital and largest administrative center of ancient Lycia, with a history dating back to around 3000 B.C. Letoon, which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with Xanthos in 1988, was one of the most important religious centers of the period. Located about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) apart, the two sites preserve stone inscriptions containing the longest surviving texts in the Lycian language.

Located near the border of Muğla and Antalya provinces, Xanthos is home to a 2,200-seat theater, built during the Hellenistic period and renovated in the Roman era. Its vaulted entrances, semicircular orchestra and stage building, which forms a unified composition with the theatron, are characteristic features of Roman architecture. North of the theater lies the Roman Agora, a large public square surrounded by porticoes that served as the center of commerce, politics and social life.

Discovered in 1840, the sanctuary of Letoon contains a theater with 36 rows of seats, a basilica, inscriptions, three temples, a circular portico associated with the imperial cult and an L-shaped stoa. Leto and her divine twins, Apollo and Artemis, were each honored with their own temple. The Temple of Leto is the largest of the three, while the Temple of Apollo is notable for resembling the houses depicted in Lycian tombs and for its wooden foundations. The lower parts of the Temple of Artemis remain submerged today as the water levels has gradually risen since antiquity.

Gordion

Located at the crossroads of the great empires of the ancient world – Assyria, Babylon and the Hittites in the east and Greece and Rome in the west – Gordion occupied a strategic position on the trade routes linking the Aegean and the Mediterranean with the Near East. Located in Türkiye’s capital Ankara, the ancient city of Gordion was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.

The settlement has been occupied almost continuously for 4,500 years, making it one of the world's longest-lived inhabited landscapes.

Gordion is best known as the capital of the Phrygian Kingdom and the city of the legendary King Midas. It offers some of the richest archaeological evidence of Phrygian civilization, whose written records are otherwise scarce.

The landscape around Gordion is dotted with tumuli of varying sizes belonging to Phrygian royalty and elites, dating back to the ninth century B.C. Among them, the Great Tumulus, excavated in 1957, is one of the largest burial mounds in Anatolia, measuring about 300 meters (984 feet) in diameter and rising to more than 50 meters (164 feet) in height. Its wooden burial chamber has survived remarkably intact.

The Phrygian citadel walls and monumental buildings, which demonstrate the architectural expression of royal authority and control over resources, together with the exceptionally well-preserved mosaics, wooden artifacts and textiles, rank among the most outstanding archaeological finds from ancient Anatolia.