Diyarbakır Fortress

The Fortifications of Diyarbakır are a set of fortifications enclosing the historical district of Sur in Diyarbakır, Turkey. They consist of an inner fortress, the citadel, and an outer ring of city walls.

The main gates of the city are: Dağ (Mountain) Gate, Urfa Gate, Mardin Gate, and Yeni (New) Gate. The walls come from the old Roman city of Amida and were constructed in their present form in the mid-fourth century AD by the emperor Constantius II. According to Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, the fortifications and powerful walls of Amid-Diyarbakir were built in the middle of 6th century BC under Armenian King Tigranes of and during the Yervanduni (Orontid dynasty). They are the widest and longest complete defensive walls in the world after only the Great Wall of China (the Theodosian Walls for example are longer in length, but are not continuous).

UNESCO added the building to their tentative list on 2000, and listed it along with Hevsel Gardens as a World Heritage Site in 2015, under the designation Diyarbakır Fortress.

Text adapted from “Fortifications of Diyarbakır” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Diyarbakır Fortress ranks #708 of 7,738 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #19 of the 126 mapped in Turkey. Founded c. 550 BC, it is older than 100% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 6 atlas entries founded in the 6th century BC. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 4,622 times in the last 60 days, more than 83% of the atlas. See how Turkey compares in the castle statistics.

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