Osmaniye

Osmaniye is a city in the Cilician Plains. The city has few attractions but it serves as a good base to explore the outlying sites in the countryside.

Understand
Osmaniye is in the southeastern corner of the Cilician Plains, at the foothills of the Nur Mountains, so it shared the fortunes of that region.

In the 12th century BCE, after the collapse of the Hittite Empire, the area came under the rule of a number of associated polities collectively named "Neo-Hittites". During the Middle Ages, it was the power base of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, allied with the Crusaders, who left their mark in numerous castles across the region. The Turkish settlement, mainly by nomadic tribes, began in the 11th century. The winters of the Cilician Plains are an eternal spring, but in summers the region slides into a scorching inferno, then malaria-stricken. So these nomads overwintered in the plains, and fleed to the balmy respite of the surrounding mountains as the heat and swarms of mosquitoes approached. A market town grew hereabouts, named after one of those tribes, Kınık.

In the 1860s, the American Civil War was raging on, and disrupted the access of the textile mills to cotton the world over. The Ottomans saw the emerging gap in the international supply chain, and invited experts from Egypt, which had a long history of cotton cultivation, to explore the potential. As it turned out, the Cilician Plains offered the perfect conditions for cotton agriculture, but lacked a workforce. So under the pretext of pacifying the unruly nomads, who had engaged in scores of rebellions century after century, the Ottoman army deployed Fırka-i İslahiye ("the reforming division") upon them in 1865, forcing them into a sedentary and agricultural lifestyle. The authorities accordingly developed Kınık into a larger town, and renamed it after the empire lest any of these new cotton farmers dare to forget who the boss was and revert to the condemned olden ways. (The counterpart in the inland-facing side of the Nur Mountains is called after the army division, İslahiye.)

From then on until the first decade of the Turkish Republic, Osmaniye was the capital of the independent province of Cebelibereket ("the fertile mountain"), but was demoted to a subdistrict of Adana in 1933. This was a disgrace for most of the locals, but it was rectified in 1996 when the city became a provincial capital again.

With the irrigation projects coming off in the arid soils of Southeastern Anatolia to the east in the 1990s, the cotton production shifted to that direction and is no longer that important for this region. The local agricultural focus is more on peanuts and olives nowadays.

By plane
The nearest airports are Adana-Şakirpaşa 100 km west, Kahramanmaraş  112 km northeast, Gaziantep  160 km east, and Hatay  116 km south.

By train
As of 2024, regional and long distance trains, including the Fırat Express which runs from Adana to Elazığ via Türkoğlu (for Kahramanmaraş) and Malatya, are suspended. Regional trains from Mersin via Adana are expected to resume in 2026.



By bus
There is a minibus service from İskenderun, and probably from other regional towns.

By car
Highway D400 runs through the city on its course between Adana and Gaziantep. Toll motorway O-52/E90 parallels it about 5 km to the north.

Get around
The city centre is flat and compact, so is very walkable. There is a fleet of city minibuses, but you are unlikely to use them. For the outlying sites, you need a car.

The downtown area is on a strange one-way grid, with several streets in parallel with each other running southwards, but none in the other direction. Devise a workaround plan before setting out. Parking space is also hard to come by in this area.

Buy

 * There is a line of ATMs along the southern side of the central park, and many banks are on Ahmet Alkan Cd as you turn south from the corner.

Eat

 * Kömbe is the local cookie with a touch of clove and cinnamon, and dipped in grape molasses prior to cooking.
 * Local simit, Turkish bagel, also features molasses, but it tastes bland and neither sweet nor salty.
 * east of the mosque is a strip of eateries, some featuring local liver kebabs.
 * Small eateries are everywhere in the downtown area.

Drink

 * There is a couple of shops specializing in pickles along Ahmet Alkan Cd, where you can enjoy a cup (or a barrel) of fresh şalgam suyu (fermented black carrot juice).
 * You may come across vendors selling meyan kökü şerbeti (liquorice root juice) in the street markets.

Go next

 * Adana, the riverside regional capital, is to the west.
 * İskenderun is a major harbour town to the south, and is the gateway to the rest of Hatay.
 * Gaziantep is a major city to the east, with a great old town and mosaic museum. Head this way for Southeastern Anatolia.