Elmalı

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title: "Elmalı" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["metropolitan-district-municipalities-in-turkey", "antalya", "populated-places-in-antalya-province", "districts-of-antalya-province", "populated-places-in-ancient-lycia", "elmalı"] topic_path: "geography/turkey" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmalı" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::data[format=table title="Infobox Turkey place"]

Field	Value
type	metro district
name	Elmalı
image_skyline	Historic streets of Elmalı, Antalya.jpg
image_caption	Historic streets of Elmalı
image_map	Antalya location Elmalı.svg
map_caption	Map showing Elmalı District in Antalya Province
coordinates
province	Antalya
leader_party	CHP
leader_name	Halil Öztürk
area_total_km2	1433
elevation_m	1100
population_footnotes
population_total	40774
population_as_of	2022
postal_code	07700
area_code	0242
website
::

Formerly known as Kabalı and Emelas.

Geography

Elmalı is a small plateau at the head of a long upland valley in the Beydağları range of the western Taurus Mountains, surrounded by high peaks including the 2500m Elmalı Mountain. Aside from the town of Elmalı, the district includes two other small towns (Akçay and Yuva) as well as villages. The area is watered by streams running off the mountains. Although close to the Mediterranean, Elmalı is high in the mountains and has an inland climate of cold winters and hot summers, (although still much cooler than the coast). Near Lake Avlan, there is an area of cedar forest, rare in Turkey.

Climate

Elmalı has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa), with hot, dry summers, and chilly, moderately wet, somewhat snowy winters.

| Jan humidity = 72.4 | Feb humidity = 67.1 | Mar humidity = 59.4 | Apr humidity = 55.8 | May humidity = 53.2 | Jun humidity = 45.5 | Jul humidity = 38.6 | Aug humidity = 40.8 | Sep humidity = 44.8 | Oct humidity = 55.6 | Nov humidity = 64.3 | Dec humidity = 73.1 | year humidity = 55.8 | source = NOAA{{cite web |url = https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/archive/arc0216/0253808/2.2/data/0-data/Region-6-WMO-Normals-9120/Turkiye/CSV/Elmali_17952.csv |title = World Meteorological Organization Climate Normals for 1991-2020 — Elmalı |publisher = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |access-date = January 15, 2024}}

Composition

There are 60 neighbourhoods in Elmalı District:

History

Excavations, by Machteld Mellink from Bryn Mawr College, of the burial mounds of Semahöyük and Müren have shown signs of copper production dating back to 2500 BC. The area was later a key town in the north of the antique province of Lycia, and the Lycian Way trade route came through here. It was a small town of Asia Minor in the vilayet of Konia in the Ottoman era, then the administrative centre of the ancient Lycia, but not itself corresponding to any known ancient city. The plain was subsequently controlled by the Ancient Romans, Byzantines, and the Seljuk Turks. The town was the headquarters of Beylik of Teke clan of Anatolian beyliks when it was brought into the Ottoman Empire at the time of Sultan Bayezid I. It remained a key mountain stronghold in the Ottoman period and through the early years of the Turkish republic, but has declined as recent generations have left the dry mountainside for jobs on the coast or in Turkey's major cities.

Demographics

The district has a population of 40,774 (2022).

Elections

2007 General Elections (Parties with more than %5)

::data[format=table]

Party	Number of Votes	Percentage(%)
AKP	7.880	31,90
CHP	7.686	31,81
MHP	4.576	18,52
DP	3.157	12,78
Turnover	%89,90
::

Elmalı today

The district's economy is largely agricultural; 37% of the land is planted. In keeping with its name, (literally apple-town) Elmalı produces 12% of the Turkey's apples. Other fruit and vegetables are grown here too, the local leblebi (dried chick peas) is delicious.

Few tourists come to Elmalı although the town is beginning to attract visitors thanks to its rich traditional architecture and beautiful mountain surroundings; these people are either day-trippers or passing through en route to the Mediterranean coast, but do bring important income to the area. Also some residents of the coastal towns such as Finike, Fethiye or Kaş have holiday homes in Elmalı, a retreat from the summer heat on the coast. There is little industry or manufacturing in the district, only a brickworks, flour and feed mills, and a fruit juice plant.

Most people live in cottages and wooden houses, but there are some apartment buildings in Elmalı itself, a small town of 14,500 people with banks and other essential services. The infrastructure in the villages is basically little more than telephones, and elementary schools. Each village used to have a traditional guest house (köy evi) but many are in disrepair today.

The cuisine is typical of Anatolia, where ladies grilling the flat bread gözleme by the roadside, but Elmalı is known for its various ways of using sesame, including baked beans served with a lemon and sesame relish (Antalya usulu piyaz). Another local speciality is goat milk ice-cream.

Places of interest

There are a number of mosques, prayer schools and other buildings from the Beylik of Teke and the Ottoman periods. Of particular interest are the library containing a collection of Ottoman writings and the mosque and medrese (prayer school) of Ömer Paşa, (1602), student of the great Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan. There is an earlier, Seljuk period minaret opposite the mosque. Other Ottoman buildings include the tombs of Abdül Vehhat and Abdal Musa; the mosque of Sinan-i Ümmi; the Turkish bath, Bey Hamamı; the fountain of Çatalçeşme, (in the centre, behind the broken minaret).
Recent excavation has revealed a great number of tombs and relics from antique Lycia, and even earlier.
The Lycian castle of Gilevgi, between the villages of Gilevgi and Çobanisa.

There are of course many places for picnics in the forest, and there is an oil wrestling tournament in the first week of September.

Elmalı Treasures

(Elmalı Hazinesi) is the name commonly given in Turkey to an important find of antique treasure; 1,900 silver coins (including 1,100 from Lycia and 14 extremely rare decadrachms) from the Delian League. They were discovered during an illegal excavation in 1984 in Bayındır village, Elmalı and smuggled to the U.S. and European countries. The hoard was reassembled by William Koch with the advice of the numismatists Jeffry Spier and Jonathan Kagan, and a symposium was held to publish and exploit the information gained. The efforts of the journalist Özgen Acar and the Turkish government made the headlines in late 1990s and led to the return of the reassembled hoard. Today, the coins are on exhibit in Elmalı Museum.

Well-known residents

Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır (1877–1942) Muslim cleric whose Turkish language Koran is accepted as a standard translation. He was born in Elmalı (although his family descended from Yazır Turkmens of Burdur). He represented Antalya in the parliament of the Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire) in 1906 and later wrote on religious matters for the government of the Turkish Republic, on behalf of Atatürk himself.
Abdal Musa, a well-known sufi preacher, a relative of Hacı Bektash Veli. There is a festival to commemorate him held every June in the village of Tekke, where he is buried.

References

[https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Büyükşehir İlçe Belediyesi] {{Webarchive. link. (2023-03-06 , Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 8 June 2023.)
"İl ve İlçe Yüz ölçümleri". General Directorate of Mapping.
"Address-based population registration system (ADNKS) results dated 31 December 2022, Favorite Reports". [[TÜİK]].
{{EB1911
"Table 1 Overview of the Köppen-Geiger climate classes including the defining criteria.". Nature: Scientific Data.
"Kar Örtülü Gün Sayısı".
[https://www.e-icisleri.gov.tr/Anasayfa/MulkiIdariBolumleri.aspx Mahalle] {{Webarchive. link. (2023-03-06 , Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 22 May 2023.)
"Elmalı".
I. Carradice (ed.), 1987: Coinage and Administration in the Athenian and Persian Empires, British Archaeological Reports, Intternationa Series 343, Oxford.
"Museum Security Mailinglist Reports".

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