Maraş

Maraş stands below a citadel at the meeting of the Taurus foothills and the plains leading toward Syria. In Roman and Byzantine times it was known as Germanicia; Arab geographers called it Marʿash. Its place near the mountain passes made it a frontier stronghold, repeatedly contested by Byzantine and Muslim rulers. The castle commanded the town and the roads through a landscape of mountains, rivers and cultivated river basins.

From the fourteenth century Maraş formed part of the lands of the Dulkadir Türkmen, whose rulers navigated rivalry between the Mamluks and the rising Ottoman state. Their patronage left mosques, schools and other foundations in the town. In 1515 the Dulkadir lands came under Ottoman authority, with administration initially entrusted to a member of the ruling family, Şehsuvaroğlu Ali Bey. Maraş subsequently became a centre of an Ottoman province whose districts included Elbistan and Kars-ı Zülkadriye. Its position at the edge of the mountains gave the provincial centre access to both the upland districts and the plains to the south.

The town's markets served its surrounding countryside and the travellers who crossed the frontier country. Its medieval and Ottoman buildings recall the rulers who invested in Maraş as well as the local communities that sustained the town beneath its imposing citadel.