Siirt

Siirt is a city in Southeastern Anatolia.

Understand

Siirt has a mixed population of Kurds, Turks, and local Arabs, the latter of whom speak a dialect that is incomprehensible to Arabs from elsewhere.

Get in

Siirt is not far from Diyarbakır, the largest city of Southeastern Anatolia, 187 km west.

While there is no railway connection to Siirt itself, TCDD operates an overnight train from Ankara, the Guney Kurtalan Express, to nearby Kurtalan. From there it's just 30 km by road and there are connecting buses and taxis.

See

• 1 Great Mosque (Ulu Cami). Built in 1129 by the Great Seljuk Sultan Mahmud II, who belonged to the main branch of the dynasty that ruled from Baghdad, after the Seljuks had split into several branches. The mosque was further developed by the Ottoman Empire, and restored in 1965. (updated Sep 2024)

Do

• 1 Botan Valley National Park (Botan Vadisi Millî Parkı). (updated Jun 2021)

Buy

• Bıttım soap (Bıttım sabunu) made of oil of local variety of pistachios, with its mossy scent and bright green colour, is unique to the city. It's best to buy it from reputable places as some home-made soaps can turn out to be not properly produced (with an excess of lye), so can heavily dry and irritate your skin.

Sleep

• 1 Erdef Hotel. Good location in center, basic and cheap. 600 TRY (as of september 2024, equivalent to 15 euros). (updated Sep 2024)

Go next

Routes through Siirt

Diyarbakır ← Batman ←

W  E

→ Şırnak → Ends at (W E)