Konya

Understand

Konya has been inhabited at least since 3000 BC: cultures we know of include the Hittites, Sea Peoples (the Philistines of Canaan), Phrygians, Cimmerians, Greeks, Romans and Persians. In 47 AD St Paul and his followers were run out of town in Antioch and began preaching here, with the same result. But Konya is best known as the capital of the Sultanate of Rum, established in the late 11th century in former Byzantine territory. The poet and Sufi thinker Rumi settled in the early 13th century. The city's heritage thus stems from this Selçuk golden age. From 1420 it was ruled by the Ottomans, though briefly occupied by the Khedive of Egypt in 1832 and by the Italians in 1919, as part of a short-lived attempt to establish a colony in southwestern Asia Minor during the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire post-World War I.

The town lies on a flat agricultural plain, so food, textiles and leather were its early industries. In the 20th and 21st centuries came automobiles, tool and machinery manufacturing, casting, paints, chemicals, construction materials, paper and packaging. The population doubled from about one million in 1960 to two million in 2000 as Konya drew in labour from elsewhere. In 1975 Selçuk University was founded here, and trade including tourism was boosted in 2011 when the high speed railway arrived. It has a large air base, so it stands on the front line of NATO defences, with several cockpits of war within 30 minutes flying time.

Konya retains the air of an Ana…

Get in

"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn't matter, Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times, Come, come again, come." — Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī

Get around

thumb | Sarcophagus in the Archaeological Museum Walk the central district, most sites are within 1 km or so.

Trams run 06:00 to midnight. Line 1 runs north-south from Selçuk University via the bus terminal and Selçuklu YHT station to Zafer / Alaaddin Hill in city centre. Line 2 runs east-west from Alifbey via the Mevlana Cultural Centre and Mevlana Cd to Zafer / Alaadin Hill. They loop the hill then head back out.

Trams and public buses don't take cash, you need a KonyaKart (previously called ElKart). Buy it at the bus or railway station and many tram stops, and top up at convenience stores, tram stops, and on the town official mobile app (Android, iOS). In 2025 the non-seasonal KonyaKart costs 30.00 TL and each journey (scan on boarding) costs22.50 TL.

ATUS is the municipal transport website. It's only in Turkish.

KonyaRay is a metro railway in planning but as of 2022 construction has not begun.

See

thumb | Mevlana Museum Selimiye Mosque in the plaza outside Mevlana Museum is an elegant classic Ottoman building completed in 1567. Kapu Mosque and Aziziye Mosque are ornate buildings a block south of Mevlana Cd. The graveyard southwest side of the Cultural Centre contains Mevlana disciples and other notables. Koyunoğlu Müzesi is a small display within the city library, 200 m southwest of the Cultural Centre. thumb | Palace scraps on Alaaddin Hill is an artificial knoll raised by Sultan Alaaddin Keykubat at the zenith of Seljuk power. Today it's a small park at the focus of the city tramways, so the trams gyrate around it as if in homage to the dervishes then rattle back out to the suburbs. Upon it stands Alâeddin Mosque (open daily 08:00-23:00) - the crafty Sultan expunged credits to its earlier contributors, a lesson in leadership that the hapless Aladdin of western pantomime tradition might heed. He and at least seven other sultans are buried in the two mausoleums. The mosque was restored from 2014. North flank of the hill are the scraps of a Seljuk palace protected by a concrete umbrella. This was built maybe 50 years before the mosque by Kılıçarslan II, whose main legacy was to set his 11 sons and 3 daughters at war with himself and each other, to the delight of the invading Crusaders. Atatürk House is 200 m southwest of Alaaddin Hill on, you guessed it, Atatürk Cd. It's a free museum with photos and memorabilia of modern Turkey's founder, open daily 09:00-17:00.…

Do

thumb | Whirling Dervishes Mystic Music Festival celebrates global music similar to the Mevlana mystic tradition. The next is probably 21-29 Sept 2023, tbc. Football: Konyaspor play soccer in Süper Lig, the country's top tier. Their home ground is the multi-purpose Konya Büyükşehir (meaning "Metropolitan") Stadium, capacity 42,000 all seated, 5 km north of city centre. Internationals are occasionally played here. The stadium design is supposed to indicate the Mevlana dervishes, or bicycle spokes (the architects were a bit vague on this), but it's more like a millipede from Andromeda. Lunapark is a funfair on Beyhkim Cd 8 km north of the centre.

Buy

thumb | 150px| Bedesten market Small stores are about 1 km out from Alaaddin Hill. Kulesite is a mall on Kule Cd towards the YHT railway station. M1 Tepe is 5 km north of the centre on Dr Halil Ürün Cd.

Eat

thumb | 150px|Etli Ekmek Local cuisine centres on wheat/bread and mutton. That's one in the eye for Mevlana, himself a strict vegan. Etliekmek is a very long thin pizza with meat or cheese, as if the delivery rider had lost an argument with a steamroller. Tandır kebap is soft and juicy lamb meat slowly cooked in a wood-fired oven. Okra soup (bamya çorbası) is baby okra and chunks of meat cooked in sweet-sour pomegranate molasses. Local snacks and desserts include gevrek, stubby baguettes with butter, sesame and fennel seeds, and Konya sarması, crunchy rolls filled with whipped cream. Osmanlı Döner is behind Seljuk Hotel near Alaaddin Hill, open M-Sa 07:00-20:30.

Drink

Some cafes serve beer, but Konya is conservative and lacks bars and nightlife. Yeshill Coffee within Think Hotel has power sockets at every table and Wi-Fi.

Sleep

thumb | An example of the traditional dwellings

Connect

Konya has 4G from all Turkish carriers. As of 2025, 5G is only available in the city centre. Free WiFi can be also accessed in centre.