Turkey · Adana
Where to Stay in Kozan, Adana
Where to stay in Kozan
Where you base yourself shapes the visit — here's the character of each area.
Where you stay in Kozan turns on the castle town. The streets below the ridge keep the market, the old town, and the road to the castle within a walk, and staying in town suits anyone here for the history. The castle looms over the roofs.
Rooms sit below the rocky ridge. Out on the plain toward Anavarza, the land opens into cotton and orange groves. A room out on the plain trades the town for the fields, the ruins, and the quiet of the Çukurova.
The flat land spreads past the edge. If you want the castle and the market, stay in town; if you want the ruins, take a room out on the plain. Either way, the castle is close at hand.
About Kozan
Kozan is the old town of Sis, once a royal Armenian city.
What is Kozan known for?
A vast castle strung along the ridge above the town recalls the days when Sis was the capital of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and the seat of its church, and nearby rise the great ruins of Anavarza on the plain. Orange groves fill the lowland around. Castle and ruins mark the town.
What are the main landmarks in Kozan?
Sis Castle crowns the ridge above Kozan. The vast Armenian fortress runs for a mile along the rocky spine, the emblem of the town, over the plain. Great ruins lie out on the flat.
At Anavarza the old Roman city of Anazarbus keeps its arch, its walls, and its hilltop castle, while old Armenian churches and monasteries stand in the hills around Kozan.
What is the history of Kozan?
Kozan was the royal city of Armenian Cilicia. When the Armenians built a kingdom on the Cilician plain in the middle ages, they made Sis their capital, and their kings ruled and were crowned in the castle on the ridge, while the head of their church kept his seat in the town below. A great castle guarded the pass.
The long fortress climbed the rocky spine above Sis, watching the road from the mountains to the plain, one of the strongest in the land. Empires rose and fell around it. The kingdom fell to invaders, and the town passed to the Mamluks and then the Ottomans, though the Armenian church held its seat at Sis for centuries more.
Older ruins lay on the plain nearby. At Anavarza, the ancient Anazarbus, a Roman city with a triumphal arch and a hilltop castle lay half-buried in the fields. The castle still crowns the ridge.
Kozan keeps its castle and its ruins on the Çukurova.
Where is Kozan?
Kozan lies on the northern edge of the Çukurova plain in Adana, southern Turkey. The town sits where the flat cotton lowland meets the foothills of the Taurus, below a long rocky ridge, on a branch of the Ceyhan river. Bare crags rise behind the town.
The green plain spreads to the south.
What is the climate of Kozan?
The climate at Kozan is Mediterranean, warm through most of the year. Hot, dry summers bake the cotton plain, and the winters stay mild and wet, watered by rains off the sea, so the lowland is green in the cooler months. Mountain snows feed the rivers in spring.
The plain stays warm much of the year.
How do you get to Kozan?
Kozan lies northeast of Adana on the edge of the Çukurova plain. Roads run to it from Adana across the cotton fields, and mountain roads climb north into the Taurus, while the plain roads reach the ruins of Anavarza. Services run out to the other towns of the Çukurova.
Most arrive by road from Adana.
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Updated August 2026