The Black Sea Coast

Greek colonists from Miletus founded Sinope, today's Sinop, in the 7th century BC, followed by Amisos (Samsun) and Trapezus (Trabzon). Sinope was the birthplace of the philosopher Diogenes. The Kingdom of Pontus grew up here, with Amaseia, now Amasya, as its early capital, and under Mithridates VI it fought Rome for decades before falling in the 1st century BC; Julius Caesar's "I came, I saw, I conquered" followed his victory at Zela, today's Zile in Tokat province.

Further inland, the Hittites had ruled an empire from Hattusa in Çorum province in the Bronze Age. After 1204 the Komnenos family founded the Empire of Trebizond, a Byzantine successor state that outlived Constantinople until Mehmed II took Trabzon in 1461. Under the Ottomans, Amasya was a training ground for princes, and Safranbolu grew rich on the caravan trade.

The modern era began at Samsun, where Mustafa Kemal landed on 19 May 1919 to organise the national resistance. The Pontic Greek population was devastated by massacres and deportations during and after the First World War, and those who remained were sent to Greece in the 1923 population exchange. The republic developed coal mining at Zonguldak and a steelworks at Karabük in the 1930s, and in November 1999 an earthquake struck Düzce. A modern coastal highway transformed travel along the shore.

The eastern Black Sea has a strong identity. The Laz, who traditionally speak Lazuri, a language related to Georgian, live around Rize and Artvin, and the Hemşin, of Armenian origin, have their own culture in the upper valleys. The music is fast and distinctive: the three-stringed kemençe fiddle and the tulum bagpipe accompany the horon, a line dance of quick, shivering steps. Black Sea people are the subject of a whole genre of Turkish jokes about Temel, a stock Black Sea character, and are known for their quick humour and strong local pride, not least in Trabzonspor, the region's leading football club.

Summer life moves up to the yayla, the high pastures, where festivals bring music, dancing and, in Artvin, bull wrestling. In the Giresun village of Kuşköy, a whistled form of Turkish used to call across the valleys has been on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list since 2017.

Further west, the region is closer to central Anatolian traditions. The town of Mengen in Bolu is famous for producing cooks. Amasya and Tokat hold on to their Ottoman urban culture, with printed cloth from Tokat.

Samsun is the region's largest city, with around 1.4 million people in its province, a port and a growing industrial base. Trabzon, with about 800,000, is the main city of the east, and Ordu, Giresun, Rize, Zonguldak, Tokat and Çorum are the other centres.

The economy depends on a few crops. Turkey grows most of the world's hazelnuts, and the gardens of Ordu and Giresun supply much of them. Rize and the eastern coast produce Turkey's tea, most of it processed by the state company Çaykur. Zonguldak mines coal, Karabük makes steel, and Tokat and Amasya grow fruit.

Life follows the weather and the seasons: rain, fog, tea-picking in spring and summer, and the move to the pastures. Many young people have left for Istanbul, and villages fill mainly in summer. Floods and landslides, made worse by building along river beds, are a recurring concern, as are hydroelectric dams in the valleys and the effect of the coastal highway on the shoreline.

The anchovy, hamsi, is the region's emblem. It is fried in cornmeal (hamsi tava), baked into rice (hamsili pilav) and grilled on the coast in winter, its season. Corn is the other staple: cornbread, mısır ekmeği, and kuymak or muhlama, a rich dish of cornmeal cooked in butter with melted cheese. Karalahana çorbası, a soup of dark-leaved cabbage, is a staple of the Black Sea kitchen.

Trabzon is known for its pide and for the köfte of Akçaabat, and the pides of Bafra and Terme in Samsun province have their own following. Laz böreği is a sweet pastry filled with custard. Rize produces most of Turkey's tea, and the Anzer plateau above it gives a rare and expensive honey. Giresun and Ordu hazelnuts go into chocolate and sweets.

Inland, Tokat has its own kebab of lamb, aubergine and potato roasted together, Amasya is known for its apples, Çorum for leblebi, roasted chickpeas eaten as a snack, Safranbolu for saffron, and Sinop for its own style of mantı.

In Trabzon province, the Sumela Monastery clings to a cliff above the Altındere valley, and in the city the 13th-century Hagia Sophia, with its frescoes, stands near the sea; Uzungöl, a lake village in the mountains, is a popular day trip. Rize's tea hills climb steeply behind the town, and inland the Fırtına valley, with its stone bridges, leads to Ayder and the Kaçkar Mountains, a walking area of lakes and high pastures that continues into Artvin.

On the central coast, Samsun has a memorial to Atatürk's landing and the Kızılırmak delta, a major bird habitat. Sinop, on its peninsula, has harbour walls, a historic prison turned museum and quiet coves. Inland, Amasya's riverside Ottoman houses sit below the rock tombs of the Pontic kings, Tokat has its Seljuk Gök Medrese, and in Çorum province lie Hattusa and Yazılıkaya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Alacahöyük.

In the west, Safranbolu in Karabük province is a UNESCO World Heritage Site of timber-framed Ottoman houses and caravanserais. Amasra in Bartın has a Genoese-era fortress on its harbour, Kastamonu the gorges of the Küre Mountains, and Bolu the lakes of Abant and the Yedigöller forests.