Hatay is a province in the southeastern part ofMediterranean Turkey, borderingSyria.
In February 2023, Hatay was hit by a series of devastating earthquakes. Many of the province's buildings, landmarks, hotels and restaurants are badly damaged or collapsed, and most of the surviving inhabitants were evacuated.
Road infrastructure and bus services in the province have been restored, and tourism facilities are being rebuilt.
Hatay is a geopolitical oddity: it is the only piece of land annexed by Turkey after its modern boundaries were defined in the Lausanne and Ankara Treaties of 1923 and 1926, respectively. From 1920, after the collapse of theOttoman Empire followingWorld War I, the province came underFrench administration as part of the French Mandate ofSyria and was then known as theSandjak (county)of Alexandretta. However, a significant ethnic Turkish population remained. Perhaps in anticipation of Turkish support in the widely (and rightly) expectedupcoming war, the French relinquished control in 1938 under Turkish pressure, and the area appeared on the maps as the independentState of Hatay, a name coined after the ancientHittites by Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, to associate the area better with the Anatolian heartland — the Hittites had ruled the area for a long time, and the official stance of that time was that the new republic was the final form and the natural successor of a sequence of states founded in Anatolia, the Hittite Empire included.
Following a plebiscite held the next year, it joined Turkey asHatay Province. Since this happened before the Syrian independence in 1946, the Syrian government had no say in it and has refused to recognize this move to this day; the officially-sanctioned maps published in Syria continue to show Hatay as part of that country, often with dashed lines over the actual border implying some sort of "special administration". There's a local anecdote about how back in the day a Turkish shepherd had to cross the border in pursuit of his flock, and was detained by the Syrian authorities on illegal border crossing charges. He made his case that, per the official Syrian view, he was in Syria all the time, so couldn't be accused of any border crossing whatsoever, and was set free. (It might be just that he was on his lucky day, so don't ever try mimicking his experience.)
It's easy to point out Hatay on maps, even those zoomed out to show entire continents: due to its political history, Hatay is where the southern border of Turkey, which otherwise is roughly a line in an east-west direction, extends significantly southwards. The other geographical feature helpful in picking it out is that it's on the very northeastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea, where the northern coast curves into theMiddle Eastern shores stretching south (traditionally known as theLevant). So there are lots of beaches, mainly serving the locals, although the time-honoured centre,Antakya/Antioch, is inland.
Hatay takes pride in its multiculturalism: the native population is roughly divided in half between ethnic Turks and Arabs, the latter of whom in turn are divided into three main faith groups: Sunni Muslims, Alawites, and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The province is also home to Turkey's only remaining rural Armenian community (also one of the few anywhere outsideArmenia), as well as a handful of Assyrians (Syriac Orthodox & Catholic) and Maronite Catholics (ofLebanese descent). Refugees from the ongoing Syrian Civil War are numbering up to a third of the native population. Therefore the local culture, cuisine in particular, forms a continuum between the rest of Turkey and the Middle East proper. There is also some architectural legacy from the French, particularly in Antakya and İskenderun.
Turkish is the dominant language throughout the province; locals often speak it with an accent. The Syrian dialect ofArabic is the native tongue for many, especially in the south.
Domestic flights are available toHatay Airport betweenAntakya andİskenderun, about 25 km north of the former and 45 km southeast of the latter. The nearest international airport is inAdana to the north.
The only significant station within the province is in Iskenderun, which welcomes trains three times daily (morning, around noon, and evening) fromMersin viaTarsus andAdana.
The main road connecting the province to the rest of Turkey is the toll motorwayO-53. There are also secondary highways, some of which eventually reach the border posts on the Turkish-Syrian border.
The fast ferry services byHADO, affiliated with Hatay Metropolitan Municipality, from the port of Madenli south of İskenderun toNorthern Cyprus were suspended after the earthquake; as of Jul 2023 there is no announced date for when they may resume. The ferry links withIsrael andEgypt are geared towards trucks bypassing the conflicts in the Middle East and do not accept foot passengers.
The bike path along the scenic coastal road fromArsuz toÇevlik is the longest uninterruptedcycle lane in Turkey.
Künefe is the most celebrated local treat — so much so that the building in which the national assembly of independent Hatay convened in Antakya housed akünefe speciality shop namedMeclis ("parliament") for a time. This is the Hatay version of knafeh, a Middle Eastern dessert made of shredded pastry with a layer of cheese inside. Enjoy while still hot, when the cheese is melted into the rest of the ingredients.
The telephone code of the province is326, which should be prefixed with0 when calling from elsewhere in Turkey, or with+90 when calling from abroad.
With two border posts (with roads leading to eitherAleppo orLatakia), Hatay is usually a jump-off for trips intoSyria to the south and east (orwas, before the civil war there began). The neighbouring Turkish regions of theCilician Plains to the northwest andSoutheastern Anatolia to the northeast share many cultural traits with Hatay.
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