Diyarbakir Walls and Hevsel Gardens

UNESCO World Heritage Site (Diyarbakir Fortress And Hevsel Gardens Cultural Landscape, 2015); Five And A Half Kilometres Of Basalt City Wall With 82 Towers · Diyarbakir, Diyarbakir

Diyarbakir is walled in black basalt - five and a half kilometres of it, eighty-two towers, four main gates, and a claim, made locally and often enough that it sticks, that only the Great Wall of China runs longer. The stone is volcanic and almost absorbs light, so the old city reads as a dark mass above the Tigris, with the green of the Hevsel Gardens spread on the floodplain below it; UNESCO inscribed the two together in 2015 as one landscape, because the gardens have fed the city inside the walls for thousands of years. Inside is the Great Mosque, one of the oldest in Anatolia, built on a church and reusing Roman columns in a courtyard that looks more like a Syrian mosque than a Turkish one. The honest caveat: the Sur district was badly damaged in the fighting of 2015 and 2016, whole streets were demolished and rebuilt, and the visit is uneven as a result. Go, and go with that in mind.

Sur Ilcesi, Diyarbakir Surlari, Diyarbakir, Diyarbakir, Diyarbakir, Turkiye

The walls are open city fabric and can be walked at any reasonable hour, with some rampart sections gated and keeping daytime hours. The Great Mosque, the hans and the churches keep their own hours; the mosque closes to visitors around the five prayers. Hevsel Gardens are agricultural land along the Tigris with public paths. Summer afternoons are extremely hot and the old city empties until evening. Diyarbakir was affected by the February 2023 earthquakes; confirm what is open in Sur before planning a day around a particular building.

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