Bozok

Bozok is an extensive plateau district in central Anatolia, named for the Oghuz Turkmen groups who settled there. Its open uplands supported herds as well as villages cultivating the plains. Under Ottoman rule Bozok became a district with several rural subdivisions. The town of Yozgat grew as its administrative and commercial centre, especially under the influence of the Çapanoğlu family in the eighteenth century.

Mustafa Bey of the Çapanoğlu family commissioned Yozgat's great mosque in 1779. Its decoration reflected styles then current in Ottoman architecture, and the complex became a prominent monument of the growing town. The family's power as local notables helped transform the settlement and its surroundings, drawing inhabitants to a district once characterised largely by mobile pastoral communities.