Elbistan

Elbistan lies in a broad highland plain watered by the headwaters of the Ceyhan. Its setting between the Anatolian plateau and the roads to Syria gave the town an important place in the struggles of the medieval frontier. In 1277 the Mamluk sultan Baybars defeated a Mongol army nearby, a celebrated episode in the contest for Anatolia.

In 1337 the Türkmen leader Karaca Bey was appointed Mamluk governor of Elbistan and laid the foundations of the Dulkadir principality. Its rulers held the town amid shifting alliances and rivalry with their powerful neighbours. In 1465 the Dulkadir prince Arslan Bey was assassinated by an agent sent by the Egyptian sultan; six years later Mamluk forces plundered Elbistan after defeating his successor Şehsuvar. Ottoman victory at Turnadağ in 1515 ended the principality's independence and brought the region into the Ottoman sphere.