Çerkeş

Çerkeş stands at the foot of a hill in the northern Anatolian interior. The traveller Evliya Çelebi described a town of some three hundred houses and a mosque when he visited in the seventeenth century. Its position in the Çankırı country placed it within the lands contested by the Candarids and Ottomans.

Bayezid I took much of the Candarid principality, including Çerkeş, in 1392. After Timur defeated him at Ankara in 1402, İsfendiyar Bey recovered the district. Ottoman forces took it again in 1417, and it passed to Kasım Bey, a Candarid prince who had sought Ottoman protection. The changes of allegiance reflect the shifting fortunes of the rival rulers of northern Anatolia and the enduring importance of the roads through its inland valleys.