Kula Volcanic Geopark

Turkiye'S First UNESCO Global Geopark, Designated 2013; Around Eighty Volcanic Cones With Eruptions Within The Last Ten Thousand Years, Fossil Footprints In Ash, And An Ottoman Town Of Carved Timber Houses · Kula, Manisa

Between Kula and Salihli, on the road from Izmir towards the interior, around eighty volcanic cones sit in a black lava landscape that in places erupted within the last ten thousand years - which is recent enough that the Greeks knew about it and called the district the Burnt Land. UNESCO made it Turkiye's first Global Geopark in 2013. Wind and water have eroded the tuff into pillars the region calls fairy chimneys, smaller and less famous than Cappadocia's but formed the same way; black basalt flows run across the plateau; and in ash near Salihli are fossilised human footprints, known since the 1960s and once claimed to be hundreds of thousands of years old before dating brought them down to around five thousand. Kula town itself is an Ottoman survival of carved timber houses that almost nobody visits, and Sardis - one of the great under-visited classical sites - is half an hour down the road.

Kula Merkez ve Divlit Volkanik Alani, Manisa, Kula, Manisa, Turkiye

The volcanic landscape is open country with roads and tracks through it and no gate hours. The Kula town house museums and the geopark information points keep daytime hours and are thin on the ground. The fossil footprint site has had varying protection and access. Summer is very hot on black lava with no shade. Check locally what is currently open and signposted.

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