Çankaya

Çankaya is the central metropolitan district of the city of Ankara, the capital of Turkey, and an administrative district of Ankara Province. According to the 2000 census, the population of the urban center is 797,109 which swells up to 2 million or more people during the day. The district covers an area of 268 km , and the urban center lies at an average elevation of 986 m . The President of the Republic of Turkey resides here, in the "Çankaya Köşkü" presidential compound. The area is also home to many of the capital's embassies, government departments and... best-known landmarks. Çankaya is the heart of the city, a fashionable business and cultural centre as well as the centre of government. Until the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Çankaya was a hillside of orchards and gardens to the south of the city, which had grown up in time, surrounding the Ankara Castle on the opposite hill. Everything changed in the 1920s when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk came to stay in one of the garden houses. Atatürk selected Ankara as capital of the new republic and in the 1920s and 30s the city quickly grew, especially in the direction of Çankaya.
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