Eastern Anatolia region

Eastern Anatolia Region
Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi
Region
Location of Eastern Anatolia Region
CountryTurkey
Area
 • Total
165,436 km2 (63,875 sq mi)
Population
 • Total
6,513,106
 • Density39.3693/km2 (101.966/sq mi)
GDP
 • TotalUS$ 28.582 billion (2022)
 • Per capitaUS$ 4,390 (2022)

The Eastern Anatolia region (Turkish: Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The most populous province in the region is Van Province. Other populous provinces are Malatya Province, Erzurum Province and Elazığ Province.

It is bordered by the Black Sea Region and Georgia in the north, the Central Anatolia Region in the west, the Mediterranean Region in the southwest, the Southeastern Anatolia Region and Iraq in the south, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran in the east.

Mount Ararat

The region encompasses most of Western Armenia and had a large population of indigenous Armenians until the Armenian genocide. The Anatolia peninsula historically never encompassed what is now called "Eastern Anatolia" which was, instead, referred to as the Armenian highlands. The term "Armenia" was banned by Ottoman authorities in the 1880s, and the region was officially renamed "Eastern Anatolia" by the Turkish successor state in the 1920s. This has been characterized as an attempt by Turkey to erase the Armenian history of the region. The region has the highest average altitude, largest geographical area, and lowest population density of the seven Turkish regions.

Etymology

Following the Armenian genocide and establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the territory known as the Armenian Highlands (or Western Armenia) were renamed "Eastern Anatolia" by the Turkish government.

The English-language name Anatolia (Turkish: Anadolu) derives from the Greek Ἀνατολή (Anatolḗ) meaning "the East" and designating (from a Greek point of view) eastern regions in general. Traditionally, Anatolia was considered to be a peninsula the eastern boundary of which was a line from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Alexandretta, which is to the west of what is now the Eastern Anatolia Region. As a geographical term, this definition continues to be used.

Historically, the region was referred to as the Armenian highlands or Western Armenia. In 1923, the newly founded Republic of Turkey renamed the territory "Eastern Anatolia" as part of a wider policy of removing all non-Turkish names of places following the Armenian genocide. Beginning in 1880, the name Armenia was forbidden to be used in official documents of the Ottoman Empire, in an attempt to play down the role of Armenians in the region. The government of Sultan Abdul Hamid II replaced the name Armenia with such terms as "Kurdistan" or "Anatolia". The Sublime Porte believed there would be no Armenian question if there was no Armenia. The process of "nationalization" of toponyms was continued and gained momentum under the Kemalists after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey.

The region encompasses most of Western Armenia (Armenian: Արեւմտյան Հայաստան) and had a large population of indigenous Armenians until the Armenian genocide. The Anatolia peninsula never encompassed what is now called "Eastern Anatolia", which has been seen as an attempt by Turkey to erase the Armenian history of the region.

Subdivision

Eastern Anatolia Region has four subdivisions:

Provinces

Provinces that are entirely in the Eastern Anatolia Region:

Provinces that are mostly in the Eastern Anatolia Region:

Location and borders

The Eastern Anatolia Region is located in the easternmost part of Turkey. It is bounded by Turkey's Central Anatolia Region to the west; Turkey's Black Sea Region to the north; Turkey's Southeast Anatolia Region and Iraq to the south; and Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia to the east, where Eastern Anatolia overlaps and converges with the South Caucasus region and Lesser Caucasus mountain plateau.

The area of the region is 164,330 km2 (63,450 sq mi), which comprises 20.9% of the total area of Turkey.

Panoramic view of Ani in Kars

Economy

Eastern Anatolia has long remained on the poorer side of Turkey's east–west divide, with lower incomes, productivity and industrialization than western regions. Agriculture and livestock remain particularly important, while private investment and non-agricultural employment have been limited. In the late Ottoman period, the region had a diverse economy in which Armenians were prominent in agriculture, crafts, manufacturing and commerce alongside other communities. The Armenian genocide transformed this economy through mass killing and deportation and the confiscation of Armenian farms, homes, businesses and other property. Redistribution of this property to the state, Muslim settlers and local elites reshaped regional ownership and contributed to the creation of a Muslim-Turkish national economy. Kemalist governments expanded infrastructure, services and development programs, but eastern provinces continued to lag in human capital, investment and employment.

From the 1980s, the Turkish–PKK conflict further disrupted rural production through insecurity, displacement and the evacuation or destruction of settlements. These upheavals reinforced migration toward regional cities and western Turkey, contributing to rural depopulation and urban displacement.

Pilgrimage by Armenians

Armenian sometimes travel to the region —the ancestral homeland of Armenians, often called the "old country" in Armenian (Ergir or Yergir) or Western Armenia—is frequently described as roots tourism, pilgrimage, or homecoming rather than conventional leisure travel. Visitors seek ancestral villages, houses, cemeteries, churches, monasteries, and landscapes associated with families displaced during the Armenian genocide. Such connections are made through prayer, photographs, touching buildings, collecting soil or stones, and encounters with familiar foods and landscapes.

These journeys confront visitors with ruined, transformed, or repurposed Armenian heritage. As a result of the Armenian genocide, villages and houses have disappeared, Armenian place-names have often been replaced, and surviving churches and monasteries can become the principal remaining markers of former Armenian settlement. Restoration and "faith tourism" have preserved certain buildings while presenting them chiefly as tourist attractions and reducing or obscuring their Armenian religious identity. Sociologist Defne Över has reported that Armenian visitors who have attempted to pray outside the authorized service at the Armenian cathedral at Akhtamar were reminded by a guard that they were "only tourists."

Access to Western Armenia has also been shaped by legal, geographical, and security barriers. During the Soviet era, ordinary Armenia–Turkey travel was severely restricted; Turkey blockaded Eastern Armenia by closing land borders in 1993, and Armenian citizens later faced additional visa requirements, although direct air travel resumed in the 2000s. Diaspora Armenians using other passports can generally travel legally, but remote terrain, changed place-names, vanished settlements, difficult roads, and periods of armed conflict make organized tours particularly important. Anti-Armenian sentiment in Turkey also affects how openly visitors express Armenian identity; on some tours, pilgrims have been advised not to speak Armenian. The resulting journeys constitute a form of return in which ancestral places become physically accessible while remaining politically, materially, and socially transformed.

Demographics

The total population of the region is 5,966,101 (2019 estimate), down from 6,100,000 at the 2000 census. The population density (40 inhabitants per square kilometre (100/sq mi)) is lower than the average for Turkey (98/km2 (250/sq mi)).[citation needed] The region has the second most rural population in Turkey after the Black Sea region. Migration, especially to Marmara Region, is high. Migration to other regions and abroad is higher than the natural population increase. Until the Armenian genocide, the region also had a large population of indigenous Armenians, when it was also known as Western Armenia, and in addition had significant minorities of Georgians, Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks.

Geography

The average altitude is 2,200 m (7,200 ft). Major geographic features include plains, plateaus and massifs. There is some volcanic activity today.

Lakes and rivers

Massifs and mountains

Plateaus and plains

Lakes

Rivers

Climate and nature

Erzurum
Climate chart (explanation)
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F
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Source: Turkish State Meteorology
Imperial conversion
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█ Average max. and min. temperatures in °F
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Since most of the region is far from the sea, and has high altitude, it has a harsh continental climate with long winters and short summers. During the winter, it is very cold and snowy, during summer the weather is cool in the highlands and warm in the lowlands.

The region's annual temperature difference is the highest in Turkey. Some areas in the region have different microclimates. As an example, Iğdır (near Mount Ararat) has a milder climate.

The region contains 11% percent of the total forested area of Turkey, and it is rich in native plants and animals. Oak and yellow pine trees form the majority of the forests.

The region has high potential for hydroelectric power.

Endnotes

  1. ↑ "Statistics by Theme > National Accounts > Regional Accounts". www.turkstat.gov.tr. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  2. ↑
    • The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies – Page 3, by Richard G. Hovannisian – 2011
    • Cheterian, Vicken (2015). Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide. Oxford and New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-84904-458-5. As a result of policies such as these, the expression Armenian Plateau, which had been used for centuries to denote the mountainous highlands around Lake Van and Lake Sevan, was eliminated and replaced by the expression 'eastern Anatolia'.
    • Galichian, Rouben (2004). Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage. London and New York City: I.B. Tauris. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-1-86064-979-0.
    • Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. Vol. 14–16. Los Angeles. 2005. p. 55. Most of historical Armenia presently constitutes a part of Turkey (renamed "Eastern Anatolia"), which conducts a policy of minimizing the role of the Armenians in history{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
    • Helft, Susan (2020). "The Past, Present and Future of the Canon of Ancient Anatolian Art". In Gansell, Amy Rebecca; Shafer, Ann (eds.). Testing the Canon of Ancient Near Eastern Art and Archaeology. Oxford University Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-19-067316-1.
    • Smith, Adam T. (December 2022). "Unseeing the Past: Archaeology and the Legacy of the Armenian Genocide". Current Anthropology. 63 (S25): S56–S90. doi:10.1086/722380. ISSN 0011-3204. A 1916 decree issued by Enver Pasha, the Young Turks' minister of war, required that all place names of non-Muslim peoples, be they Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, or other, should be rendered in Turkish. After 1923, the geographic province that had been referred to as Armenia since the sixth century BC was officially renamed 'eastern Anatolia.'
  3. ↑ Hovannisian, Richard G. (1997). "Etiology and Sequelae of the Armenian Genocide". In Andreopoulos, George J. (ed.). Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-8122-1616-5.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cheterian, Vicken (2015). Open Wounds: Armenians, Turks and a Century of Genocide. Oxford and New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-84904-458-5. As a result of policies such as these, the expression Armenian Plateau, which had been used for centuries to denote the mountainous highlands around Lake Van and Lake Sevan, was eliminated and replaced by the expression 'eastern Anatolia'.
  5. 1 2 3 Sahakyan, Lusine (2010). Turkification of the Toponyms in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. Montreal: Arod Books. ISBN 978-0-9699879-7-0.
  6. 1 2 3 Hovannisian, Richard (2007). The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3.
  7. ↑ Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott. "A Greek-English Lexicon". Archived from the original on 26 May 2007. Retrieved 20 February 2021.
  8. ↑ "Anatolia | Origin and meaning of the name Anatolia by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com. Archived from the original on 13 July 2017. Retrieved 14 May 2021.
  9. ↑ Stephen Mitchell (1995). Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor. The Celts in Anatolia and the impact of Roman rule. Clarendon Press, 266 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-815029-9 Archived 29 March 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ Philipp Niewohner (2017). The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia: From the End of Late Antiquity until the Coming of the Turks. Oxford University Press. pp. 18–. ISBN 978-0-19-061047-0. Archived from the original on 11 March 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2018.
  11. ↑ Hopkins, Daniel J.; Staff, Merriam-Webster; 편집부 (2001). Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-87779-546-9. Archived from the original on 28 November 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2001.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. Vol. 14–16. Los Angeles. 2005. p. 55. Most of historical Armenia presently constitutes a part of Turkey (renamed "Eastern Anatolia"), which conducts a policy of minimizing the role of the Armenians in history{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ↑ Galichian, Rouben (2004). Historic Maps of Armenia: The Cartographic Heritage. London and New York City: I.B. Tauris. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-1-86064-979-0.
  14. ↑ Güneş Aşık, Ulaş Karakoç and Şevket Pamuk, Regional Inequalities and the West-East Divide in Turkey since 1880, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 15304, 2020.
  15. ↑ World Bank, Turkey: Economic Reforms, Living Standards and Social Welfare Study, 2000.
  16. ↑ r, Ug ur U. mit U. ngo (2011). Confiscation and destruction: the Young Turk seizure of Armenian property. Mehmet Polatel. London, New York: Continuum. ISBN 978-1-4411-1020-6. OCLC 741492909.
  17. ↑ Oxford Academic.
  18. ↑ Ümit Kurt, "1923 and the legacies of genocide", History Compass, 2024.
  19. ↑ "Key Policy Insights: OECD Economic Surveys: Turkey 2018". OECD. 2018-07-13. Retrieved 2026-09-09.
  20. ↑ Belge, Ceren (April 2016). "Civilian Victimization and the Politics of Information in the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey". World Politics. 68 (2): 275–306. doi:10.1017/S0043887115000398. ISSN 0043-8871.
  21. ↑ Dinsmore, Darren (2017-09-14). "Forced Displacement in Turkey: Pushing the Limits of the ECHR System". International Migration. 55 (5). Wiley: 180–191. doi:10.1111/imig.12276. ISSN 0020-7985.
  22. ↑ Korkmaz, Ayşenur (2021). "Our Sacred Native Land: Armenian Roots Tourism in Eastern Turkey". Études arméniennes contemporaines (13): 49–78. doi:10.4000/eac.2410.
  23. ↑ Siekierski, Konrad (2024). "Returning to the Roots: Transgenerational Trauma, Diaspora Community, and the Armenian Pilgrimage to the Lost Homeland". In Kromják, Laura; Karamehić-Muratović, Ajlina (eds.). Intergenerational Trauma in Refugee Communities. Routledge. p. 14. doi:10.4324/9781003385820-2. ISBN 9781032473789.
  24. ↑ Bertram, Carel (2018). "Dinner in the Homeland: Memory, Food and the Armenian Diaspora". In Marschall, Sabine (ed.). Memory, Migration and Travel. Routledge. pp. 189–213. doi:10.4324/9781315180465-10.
  25. ↑ Bertram, Carel (2022). A House in the Homeland: Armenian Pilgrimages to Places of Ancestral Memory. Stanford University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 9781503630208.
  26. ↑ Sensenig-Dabbous, Eugene (2016). "The Musa Dagh History Hike: Truth-Telling, Dialogue and Thanatourism". In Demirdjian, Alexis (ed.). The Armenian Genocide Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 229–242. doi:10.1007/978-1-137-56163-3_15.
  27. ↑ Clarke, David; Parish, Nina; Winfield, Polly; Lecrivain, Ani (2023). "Diasporic Memory Practice on the Internet: Remembering Lost Homelands". Memory Studies. 16 (4): 1003–1019. doi:10.1177/17506980221122174. hdl:1893/35548.
  28. ↑ Turan, Zeynep; Bakalian, Anny (2015). "Diaspora Tourism and Identity: Subversion and Consolation in Armenian Pilgrimages to Eastern Turkey". In Gorman, Anthony; Kasbarian, Sossie (eds.). Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualising Community. Edinburgh University Press. pp. 173–211. ISBN 9780748686100.
  29. ↑ von Bieberstein, Alice (2025). "A Village, a Depot and a Grazing Ground: Three Sites of Armenian Heritage in Eastern Turkey Under the Spell of "Faith Tourism"". Heritage & Society. 18 (3): 358–373. doi:10.1080/2159032X.2024.2443353.
  30. ↑ McKernan, Bethan (2020-07-11). "Turkey's 'last Armenian village' displays heritage that survived genocide". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2026-09-16.
  31. ↑ Penoni, Francesca (2020). "The Armenian Architectural Heritage in Turkey: The State of Research". L’arte armena. Storia critica e nuove prospettive. Eurasiatica. Vol. 16. Edizioni Ca’ Foscari. pp. 167–180. doi:10.30687/978-88-6969-469-1/008. ISBN 9788869694691.
  32. ↑ Över, Defne (2016). "Cultural Tourism and Complex Histories: The Armenian Akhtamar Church, the Turkish State and National Identity". Qualitative Sociology. 39: 173–194. doi:10.1007/s11133-016-9323-x.
  33. ↑ Korkmaz, Ayşenur (2025). "Multiple Moralities and Ambivalence: Armenian Pilgrimages in Eastern Turkey". Heritage & Society. 18 (3): 341–357. doi:10.1080/2159032X.2025.2515695.
  34. ↑ Turan, Zeynep; Bakalian, Anny (2015). "Diaspora Tourism and Identity". Diasporas of the Modern Middle East: Contextualising Community. Edinburgh University Press. p. 185. ISBN 9780748686100.
  35. ↑ Bertram, Carel (2022). A House in the Homeland. Stanford University Press. pp. 4–5. ISBN 9781503630208.
  36. ↑ Bertram, Carel (2022). A House in the Homeland. Stanford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 9781503630208.
  37. ↑ Holslag, Anthonie (2018). The Transgenerational Consequences of the Armenian Genocide: Near the Foot of Mount Ararat. Springer. p. 26. ISBN 978-3-319-69260-9.
  38. ↑ Hovanissian, Anush (2016). "Turkey: a Cultural Genocide". In Chorbajian, Levon; Shirinian, George (eds.). Studies in Comparative Genocide. Springer. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-349-27348-5.
  39. ↑ Bloxham, Donald (2003). "The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916: Cumulative Radicalization and the Development of a Destruction Policy". Past & Present (181): 148. JSTOR 3600788. Though no ethnicity comprised an absolute majority of the inhabitants of eastern Anatolia, Armenians formed a plurality, alongside Kurds.
  40. ↑ "İRAP, Il afet risk azaltma planı" (PDF) (in Turkish). Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency. 2021. p. 18.
  41. ↑ "İl ve İlçelerimize Ait İstatistiki Veriler- Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü". Archived from the original on 2011-06-20. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
  42. ↑ C, Aykut (2020-05-01). "Hidroelektrik Üretimi En Fazla Hangi Bölgede?". dpumekatronik.com (in Turkish). Retrieved 2020-10-08.