İskenderun: Alexander’s Port on the Gulf

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1. What is İskenderun?
2. How do you get to İskenderun?
3. When is the best time to visit İskenderun?
4. What is the history of İskenderun?
5. What is İskenderun famous for?
6. What can you do in İskenderun?
7. Frequently asked questions about İskenderun
8. What do the official records say about İskenderun?

What is İskenderun?

İskenderun is the port city of Hatay, spread along a flat strip of coast between the Gulf of İskenderun and the steep green wall of the Nur Mountains (the Amanos). It is a working city, built around its harbour, steelworks and the citrus groves of the coastal plain, with a long seafront promenade facing west across the gulf.

Its old name, Alexandretta, recalls Alexander the Great, whose victory over the Persian king Darius III at Issus in 333 BC was fought a short distance up the coast. For centuries it was the Mediterranean outlet for caravans from Aleppo and Baghdad, and before 2023 its churches and stone houses of that era still stood in the centre.

The earthquakes of 6 February 2023 hit İskenderun hard. Many buildings collapsed, a fire burned for days in the port, and parts of the seafront sank by around 80 cm and were flooded by the sea. The Catholic Cathedral of the Annunciation, the seat of the Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia, collapsed, leaving only its bell tower and part of the clergy house standing. Reconstruction has been under way since, and on 29 October 2025 the first phase of a new 303,000 m² coastal park opened on the raised and rebuilt shoreline.

How do you get to İskenderun?

By air: Hatay Airport (HTY), on the Amik plain, is about 45 km from İskenderun by road. It has direct flights from Istanbul Airport (Turkish Airlines), Sabiha Gökçen (AJet and Pegasus), Ankara (AJet) and İzmir (Pegasus and SunExpress), and some international routes. Adana and Mersin are served by Çukurova International Airport near Tarsus, which replaced Adana’s Şakirpaşa Airport in August 2024.

By road: İskenderun is on the coastal highway from Adana and Osmaniye, and the road to Antakya climbs over the Belen Pass. Intercity coaches connect it with Istanbul, Ankara and most cities in southern Türkiye, and minibuses run frequently to Antakya, Belen, Arsuz and Dörtyol.

By rail: Regional trains link İskenderun with Adana and Mersin. Check current times with TCDD before you travel.

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When is the best time to visit İskenderun?

April to June and September to November are the most comfortable months. Summers are hot and very humid at sea level, which is why local people head up to the plateaus of Belen and Güzelyayla in July and August. Winters are mild and fairly wet. If you want to swim, the coast at Arsuz to the south-west is the place to go from June to October.

What is the history of İskenderun?

Tradition says Alexander founded the city in 333 BC to commemorate his victory at Issus; historians think one of his successors is the more likely founder. It passed to the Seleucids, Romans and Byzantines, then the Abbasids, the Crusader Principality of Antioch, the Mamluks and, by the 16th century, the Ottomans.

Under the Ottomans İskenderun became the main Mediterranean port for the overland trade with Aleppo, Baghdad and India. The English Levant Company kept an agency here until 1825, and a railway reached the port in 1912. After the First World War the town was part of the autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta under the French mandate in Syria, then of the short-lived Hatay State from 1938, and it joined Türkiye with the rest of Hatay in 1939.

The 2002 inventory notes two later markers of the city’s role in tourism: the declaration of the İskenderun coastal strip as a tourism centre in 1998, and an annual İskenderun Culture and Tourism Festival in early July.

What is İskenderun famous for?

• Alexander and Issus. The city carries his name, and the battlefield of Issus lies to the north near Dörtyol.
• The port. Long the gateway between the Mediterranean and inland Syria and Mesopotamia.
• The seafront. A long promenade along the gulf, now being rebuilt after the 2023 subsidence.
• Citrus. The surrounding plain is covered in orange, tangerine and lemon groves.

What can you do in İskenderun?

Walk the new seafront. The first phase of the coastal project includes walking and cycling paths, sports areas, viewing terraces facing the sunset over the gulf, and gardens of pomegranate and bitter orange.

Visit Payas. North along the coast towards Dörtyol, the Sokullu Mehmed Paşa complex at Payas came through the earthquakes undamaged and sheltered thousands of survivors, before reopening to visitors. According to the 2002 inventory, the complex, completed in 1574 according to its inscription, was built by the grand vizier Sokullu Mehmed Paşa through the chief architect Sinan and the imperial architects’ corps, and turned Payas into an important landing place and lodging centre. In its original form it had a mosque, a hanikah (madrasa), a primary school, an arasta (covered market), a prayer dome, a caravanserai and a tabhane (guest apartments), covering about 15 dönüm. Today its 48 restored shops, bath, madrasa and mosque are in use again. Near it stands Payas Castle, which the inventory describes as a moated Ottoman fortress, restored in 1567 and used as a prison before 1919.

Go up to the plateaus. Belen, on the pass to Antakya, has a single-domed mosque built in 1553 for Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. Higher up, Güzelyayla (Soğukoluk) looks down over the whole gulf.

See Bakras Castle. At the 27th kilometre of the Antakya road, above Bakras village, stand the ruins of a castle that guarded the Belen Pass and was later held by the Templars.

Swim at Arsuz. The 2002 inventory describes the Arsuz coastline as clean and suited to sea tourism, and it remains the main beach area for İskenderun.

Frequently asked questions about İskenderun

What do the official records say about İskenderun?

Belen–Güzelyayla (Soğukoluk) can be reached by an 8-kilometre asphalt road winding through greenery and forest from the Sarımazı junction in Belen district, and minibuses run to it from Belen and İskenderun. The plateau tradition has continued at Güzelyayla for centuries.

A viewing terrace over the Gulf of İskenderun, set among pine trees and wild flowers, with its old and new buildings worth walking around and seeing, it is a plateau about which folk songs and poems have been written. You can camp, picnic and take short walks in the forest. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Hatay Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)