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
Roman Baths of Ankara settlement material at the base. The ancient city of Ancyra stood at the crossroads between the East and West and during the Roman period, the city's strategic location led to its rise to prominence as the capital of the province of Galatia. To the east of this plateau ran a roadway from the city's sacred precinct, the area of the Temple of Augustus, a section of which, flanked by second or third century grey-veined marble columns with Corinthian capitals, was uncovered during the construction of Çankiri Caddesi, during the development of Ankara into the new Turkish capital in the 1930s.