Elazığ: Harput, Lake Hazar and the Upper Euphrates

On this page

1. What is Elazığ?
2. How do you get to Elazığ?
3. Where should you stay in Elazığ?
4. What type of climate does Elazığ have?
5. When is the best time to visit Elazığ?
6. What is the history of Elazığ?
7. What is Elazığ famous for?
8. What are the historical places of Elazığ?
9. What are the best things to do in Elazığ?
10. What are the best places to visit in Elazığ?
11. What is the traditional food of Elazığ?
12. What should you buy in Elazığ?
13. Frequently asked questions about Elazığ
14. What do the official records say about Elazığ?

What is Elazığ?

Elazığ is a province in Eastern Anatolia and the name of its capital, a modern city of wide streets on a fertile plain at about 1,067 m. Above it, on the hill to the north, is the place the city came from: Harput, a fortress town that was the seat of power in the region for some three thousand years.

Water defines the province. The Karasu and the Murat, the two branches of the Euphrates, meet in the reservoir behind the Keban Dam, built in the 1970s, and the Karakaya Dam lake lies to the west. South-east of the city is Lake Hazar, a deep blue rift lake between the Hazar Baba and Mastar mountains and the source of the Tigris. The 2002 inventory introduces Elazığ as a city founded at the foot of the hill of historic Harput Castle, which attracts visitors for its history and culture, while Lake Hazar, a natural wonder in a landscape of rivers and lakes, offers them rest.

Elazığ is also one of the great food cities of Türkiye, and the home of Harput music, a classical tradition of its own.

Places to visit in Elazığ

Harput

Harput, the old fortress town above Elazığ: castle, Great Mosque with leaning…

Harput Castle

Harput Castle, the Milk Castle above Elazığ: Urartian origins, Artuqid and Akkoyunlu…

Harput Great Mosque

Harput Great Mosque (Ulu Cami), built in 1156 by the Artuqid Fahrettin…

Lake Hazar

Lake Hazar near Elazığ: a 22 km rift lake at the source…

Buzluk Cave

Buzluk Cave near Harput, 11 km from Elazığ: a natural cave where…

How do you get to Elazığ?

By air: Elazığ Airport (EZS) is about 12 km from the city centre, with daily flights from Istanbul and Ankara and services from İzmir. Overseas visitors connect in Istanbul via Istanbul Airport or Sabiha Gökçen.

By rail: Elazığ is on the railway from Ankara through Malatya to the east, and long-distance trains link it with Ankara.

By road: Coaches connect Elazığ with Istanbul, Ankara and the cities of the east and southeast. Malatya lies to the west across the Karakaya reservoir, Diyarbakır to the south over the mountains past Lake Hazar, and Tunceli to the north across the Keban reservoir.

Getting around: Harput is on the hill just above the city, a few kilometres by taxi or city bus. Lake Hazar is 22 km away on the Diyarbakır road.

Where should you stay in Elazığ?

Stay in the city centre, which has the province’s main hotels and is close to the station and the bus routes up to Harput. In summer, the shores of Lake Hazar near Sivrice are where people from Elazığ and the neighbouring provinces go to swim and camp, and there are lakeside hotels and holiday villages there. Harput itself is a place for an afternoon and an evening rather than for staying.

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What type of climate does Elazığ have?

Elazığ has a continental climate with Mediterranean influence: hot, dry summers and cold, snowy winters. July and August afternoons are regularly over 30°C (the record is 42.8°C, in July 2025), while winter nights fall well below freezing. Most of the annual rainfall, about 400 mm, comes between November and May. Hazar Baba mountain, at 2,347 m, keeps snow into spring.

When is the best time to visit Elazığ?

May to early October. Late spring is green and mild, the best time for Harput and walking on Hazar Baba. July and August are the season for Lake Hazar, when the beaches and camping grounds are busy and the inventory mentions a water-sports festival on the lake. September and October bring the grape harvest. In winter, the Hazar Baba ski centre above Sivrice opens when there is snow.

What is the history of Elazığ?

The plain around Elazığ has been settled since the Palaeolithic. The provincial culture directorate notes Neolithic settlements by around 7000 BC and Chalcolithic ones by 5000 BC, and Early Bronze Age layers at mounds such as Norşuntepe and Korucutepe, excavated before the Keban Dam flooded them. Around 2000 BC the region was known as Işuva, and it came under Hittite rule under Suppiluliuma I in the 14th century BC.

The 2002 inventory notes that, according to the historical sources, the oldest inhabitants of Harput were the Hurrians, who settled in eastern Anatolia from around 2000 BC. From the 12th to the 7th century BC the region belonged to Urartu, whose kings ruled from Van, and Harput Castle is attributed to them. Then came the Medes, the Persians, the Hellenistic kingdom of Sophene, Rome, the Parthians and Byzantium. After the empire split, the region was a contested frontier between Byzantium and the Sasanians, and later between Byzantium and the Arab caliphate.

After the Battle of Malazgirt on 26 August 1071, Harput passed to the Turks, and in 1085 the Çubukoğulları took it. In the early 12th century the Artuqid Belek captured it, and the Artuqids held Harput until 1234, when Alaeddin Keykubad I annexed it to the Anatolian Seljuk state. The Ilkhanids, the Dulkadir beylik and the Akkoyunlu followed; the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan took the city in 1465. After the Battle of Çaldıran in 1514, Harput came under Ottoman rule.

In 1834 the governor Reşid Mehmed Pasha moved the provincial centre down from Harput to the village of Mezre on the plain. The new town was named Mamuretülaziz in 1867 after Sultan Abdülaziz, which locals shortened to Elaziz; in 1937, during Atatürk’s visit, the name was changed to Elazığ.

Harput and its villages were also home to a large Armenian community, with churches, schools and the American-run Euphrates College. In 1915 the Armenian population of the province was deported and massacred, and much of Harput was later abandoned and left in ruins.

What is Elazığ famous for?

Harput. The old town on the hill, with its castle, the Great Mosque with its leaning minaret, and the oldest standing church in the region.

Lake Hazar. The lake where the Tigris begins, and where divers have found the remains of a submerged settlement.

Food. Elazığ-Harput cuisine is famous across Türkiye. Twelve local products are registered with geographical indications, including Elazığ orcik, taş ekmeği, sırın and Ağın leblebisi.

Grapes and wine. Öküzgözü and Boğazkere, two of Türkiye’s best-known red wine grapes, are registered as Elazığ grapes, and the 2002 inventory mentions Buzbağ wine made from local grapes.

Harput music. A distinctive local tradition of song and instrumental music, sung in the Harput dialect.

Earthquakes. On 24 January 2020 a magnitude 6.7 earthquake centred near Sivrice, on the shore of Lake Hazar, killed 41 people. Many buildings were rebuilt to newer seismic rules, and damage in Elazığ from the earthquakes of February 2023 was far lighter than in neighbouring Malatya.

What are the historical places of Elazığ?

In Harput

Harput Castle. Urartian in origin, rebuilt by the Artuqids, Dulkadir and Akkoyunlu, and known as the “Milk Castle”. See our Harput Castle guide.

Harput Great Mosque (Ulu Cami). Built in 1156 by the Artuqid ruler Fahrettin Karaaslan, with a famous leaning brick minaret. See our Harput Great Mosque guide.

Sara Hatun Mosque. Built in 1465 by Sara Hatun, mother of the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan, and renovated in 1585 and 1843. The inventory notes that its mihrab is a plain niche and its minbar a fine example of stone carving.

Cimşit Hamamı. A bathhouse adjoining the Sara Hatun Mosque, built in the first half of the 16th century by Cemşit Bey, one of Selim I’s cavalry officers. The square, domed changing room has two doors, and the bathing area leans against the mosque.

Church of the Virgin Mary (Meryem Ana Kilisesi). A Syriac Orthodox church on the left side of the castle, whose back wall is formed by the castle rock, so that it seems buried in the cliff. It is also called the Red Church, the Syriac Church and the Jacobite Church. It is the only church still standing in Harput.

Alacalı Mosque. A small rectangular mosque of the Artuqid period that shows traces of several building phases; its wooden ceiling dates from a major 19th-century repair.

Kurşunlu Mosque. An Ottoman mosque whose domes are covered in lead (kurşun), with a minaret of cut stone; the inventory calls it one of the finest Ottoman mosques of the region.

Ağa Mosque. At the entrance to Harput on the left of the main road; its dome has collapsed and only its slender minaret stands.

In and around Elazığ city

Elazığ Archaeology and Ethnography Museum. On the Fırat University campus, with finds from the Keban and Karakaya dam rescue excavations from the Palaeolithic to the Ottoman period, and carpets, kilims and ethnographic collections. The museum’s own page says it has been closed for renovation since November 2017, so check before going.

Buzluk Cave. The ice cave 11 km from the city below Harput. See our Buzluk Cave guide.

The sunken settlement of Lake Hazar. Remains under the water near Sivrice; see Lake Hazar.

What are the best things to do in Elazığ?

• Spend an evening in Harput. Walk from the Great Mosque to the castle and watch the lights of Elazığ come on across the plain.
• Swim and take a boat out on Lake Hazar. The provincial culture directorate promotes boat tours on the lake.
• Walk on Hazar Baba and Mastar. The inventory recommends the 2,347 m Hazar Baba and the 2,171 m Mastar mountains to the east for walking: both look out over Lake Hazar and the Keban reservoir, have rich flora and fauna, and hold snow into summer.
• Ski at Hazar Baba. The ski centre on Hazar Baba, 6 km from Sivrice, opened in 1999. From its runs you can see both Lake Hazar and the Keban reservoir.
• See the canyons. The directorate lists the Karaleylek and Saklıkapı canyons and the Ölbe valley among the province’s outdoor sites.
• Cool off in Buzluk Cave on a hot summer day.
• Time your trip for a festival. The Hazar Poetry Evenings (Hazar Şiir Akşamları), now an international event, have run for nearly thirty years, and Elazığ holds a gastronomy festival; the 2002 inventory also lists a lake festival at Sivrice in July and a leblebi festival.

What are the best places to visit in Elazığ?

Harput is the old town on the hill above Elazığ, with Artuqid and Akkoyunlu mosques, a Syriac church cut into the castle rock, and the Arap Baba shrine.

Harput Castle, the “Milk Castle”, crowns a rock outcrop over the plain; its towers have stood since the Middle Ages.

Harput Great Mosque, built in 1156, is one of the oldest mosques in Anatolia, with a brick minaret that leans visibly.

Lake Hazar is a 22 km rift lake where the Tigris begins, with beaches, camping and a submerged settlement under its surface.

Buzluk Cave is a natural ice cave near Harput where ice forms in summer and the air is warm in winter.

Also worth your time: the Keban reservoir and the Keban Çırçır waterfall, Palu, and Malatya’s Arslantepe Mound, a UNESCO site about an hour and a half to the west.

What is the traditional food of Elazığ?

The 2002 inventory says the Elazığ-Harput kitchen shows great variety and richness, shaped by the character of the region; the province has many dishes of its own, known by its name and cooked as “Elazığ dishes” in many parts of the country.

Main dishes to look for include Harput köftesi, küncülü içli köfte (stuffed bulgur balls with sesame), kelecoş, işgene, sırın (a layered dish of thin bread and yoghurt), gömme, keşkek, kofik dolması, Palu tava and kara kavurma. Sweets include taş ekmeği, dolanger, halbur hurması, peynirli ekmek and zerde, and the inventory adds names such as dilber dudağı and pestilli yumurta.

Twelve products are registered with geographical indications: Ağın leblebisi, Elazığ Boğazkere, Öküzgözü and Tahannebi grapes, Elazığ orciği, Elazığ sırın yemeği, Elazığ taş ekmeği, Elazığ geven balı (milk-vetch honey), Elazığ vişnesi (sour cherry), Elazığ çedene kahvesi (a terebinth “coffee”), Elazığ menceki buğdayı (a local wheat) and Keban biberi (Keban pepper).

What should you buy in Elazığ?

Orcik and leblebi. Orcik, walnuts threaded on string and dipped in grape molasses pudding, and roasted chickpeas from Ağın are the classic edible souvenirs.

Copper. The inventory describes a coppersmiths’ bazaar where shops worked only in copper, and notes that each had a tinning hearth, since copper kitchenware must be tinned before use. Copperwork has declined, but copper trays, braziers and door knockers are still made.

Needle lace (iğne oyası). The inventory notes that almost every young woman in Elazığ knew needle lace, and that dowry chests were full of embroidered headscarves. Patterns have names such as Harput gülü (Harput rose), hercai menekşe (pansy), çarkıfelek (passion flower), Elazığ yıldızı (Elazığ star) and iki gelin bir kaynana (two brides and a mother-in-law).

Carpets. Hand-knotted Elazığ carpets, which the inventory says were considered among the best in the country, in tile red, navy, straw yellow, orange, blue and wine red, with old Turkish and Seljuk motifs.

Frequently asked questions about Elazığ

What do the official records say about Elazığ?

Elazığ is a city founded in Eastern Anatolia at the foot of the hill on which historic Harput Castle stands. According to the available historical sources, the oldest inhabitants of Harput were the Hurrians, who settled in Eastern Anatolia from 2000 BC onwards. Harput and its surroundings passed into the hands of the Turks in 1085, after the Battle of Malazgirt on 26 August 1071. Because of its historical and cultural assets it attracts local and foreign visitors, and because its surroundings are encircled by rivers and lakes, the natural wonder of Lake Hazar in particular gives visitors a chance to rest.

Needle lace is extremely widespread in the province. Almost every young girl and woman of Elazığ has mastered the craft, and dowry chests are full of headscarves edged with needle lace and ornaments decorated with various motifs. These works, made with a needle, are truly delicate, decorated with the liveliest, most eye-catching colours and motifs found in Anatolia. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Elazığ Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)