Wan
وان
Van · Lakeside city of old Urartu. Urartu's capital on the shore of the great soda lake.
- Region
- Bakur
- English name
- Van
- Kurdish name
- Wan
- Sorani name
- وان
- Population
- ≈ 550,000 (2023, urban area)
- Elevation
- 1,725 m
- Founded/origin
- Founded as Tushpa, capital of the kingdom of Urartu, on the great rock by the lake in the 9th century BC.
For three centuries Tushpa ruled a highland empire that rivalled Assyria; cuneiform inscriptions of its kings are still cut into the Rock of Van. The city passed through Median, Persian, Armenian, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman hands, and for most of that time it was a heartland of Armenian life — the Vaspurakan of medieval chronicles — alongside Kurdish tribes of the surrounding mountains. Old Van was left in ruins in the First World War; the modern city grew up a few kilometres east, and today it is overwhelmingly Kurdish.
Wan means breakfast culture to the whole region — its herb cheese and morning-table tradition are famous across Turkey — and the white, odd-eyed Van cat is the city's living emblem. The tenth-century Armenian cathedral on Akdamar island remains one of the most moving monuments of the lake, and the ruins of old Van keep the memory of the city that was.
High-plateau climate softened by the lake: snowy winters, fresh dry summers, and water that never freezes thanks to its soda chemistry.
Places in Wan
- Kela Wanê — A kilometre-long limestone ridge fortified since the 9th century BC, with royal Urartian rock tombs and the trilingual inscription of Xerxes on its south face.
- Axtamar — The jewel of Armenian architecture (built 915–921), its outer walls carved with biblical reliefs, on a small island in the lake southwest of the city.
- Bajarê Kevn — The field of ruins below the castle where the walled city stood until the First World War — a pair of standing mosques and minarets mark what was lost.