Silifke

Silifke stands beside the Göksu, the ancient Calycadnus, where the river emerges from the Taurus toward the Mediterranean. Founded as Seleucia on the Calycadnus, the city was an important centre of Rough Cilicia. A castle crowns the hill above the settlement, and the remains of Roman and Byzantine buildings recall the long history of the river crossing and the road to the coast.

In the later Middle Ages Silifke belonged to the contested lands of the Karamanids. Ottoman forces under Gedik Ahmed Pasha advanced against the district in 1471 as the empire sought to bring the principality under its control. Ottoman rule followed in the late fifteenth century. The fortified height remained a defining feature of the town, while settlement and cultivated land spread along the river below. Silifke's location gave it a role in both the mountain hinterland and the maritime world of the Cilician shore.