Kars

Kars lies at the edge of the Cilician plain, where the lowlands meet the mountains of the interior. Known in Ottoman records as Kars-ı Zülkadriye or Kars-ı Maraş, it belonged to the country of the Dulkadir Türkmen. The town's Alacami preserves a long sequence of religious use: a Roman building was adapted as a church, then a minaret was added when it became a mosque in 1489.

Kars served as a winter administrative centre for the Dulkadir rulers in the later fifteenth century. In 1515 their lands came under Ottoman rule, and Kars became part of the administrative district of Maraş. Its distinctive name helped distinguish it from other places called Kars, while the layered masonry of the Alacami bore witness to the succession of communities that had used the site.