19th Century Public Buildings in Malatya City

Abstract

Since the oldest ages, Malatya has been a gateway and crossroads for Anatolia and the Middle East. The oldest transportation route in the East, is the road that connects to Erzurum via Malatya-Sivas and then to the Caucasus. Located on the oldest routes in terms of location, the pre-historic Malatya dates back to the Paleolithic Age, and after the Zafer Mound excavations, it has been seen that Malatya and the surrounding region dates back to 7000s BC. Being one of Anatolia's oldest settlements, Malatyahosted the Hittites, the Meds, the Persians, the Romans, the Byzantines, Islamic civilizations, Seljuks, and the Ottoman Empire, and now continues facilitating the same for the Republic of Turkey. Indeed, every civilization has left its mark on this settlement (TC Malatya Governorship Provincial Culture and Tourism Directorate, 2014). The Ottoman Empire, taking serving to its peoples on every land it conquered as a duty, attached great importance to zoning activities. After the Ottoman Empire annexed Malatya to its territories, it continued to undertake zoning activities here. With the Westernization period, the Ottoman Empire changed its understanding of the field of zoning as in many other fields, and began to apply this new understanding in late period structures.