Ankara Province Ankara Province Ankara Province (, ) is the capital province of Turkey. The site of the modern city has been home to settlements by many historic Anatolian civilizations in antiquity and classical times, including Phrygians, Lydians, Persians and Alexander the Great, Romans, and Galatians. The city of Ankara became a fortified stronghold of the Byzantines; it fell to the Seljuk Turks and later the Ottoman Empire. It was finally chosen by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the Turkish National Movement as the site of the provisional government and the Turkish parliament in 1920, and in 1923 as the capital city of
History of Ankara tetrarchy, a system of multiple (up to four) emperors introduced by Diocletian (284-305), seems to have engaged in a substantial programme of rebuilding and of road construction from Ankara westwards to Germe and Dorylaeum (now Eskişehir). In its heyday, Roman Ankara was a large market and trading center but it also functioned as a major administrative capital, where a high official ruled from the city's Praetorium, a large administrative palace or office. During the 3rd century, life in Ancyra, as in other Anatolian towns, seems to have become somewhat militarised in response to the invasions and instability of the town.