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Mersin
City and metropolitan municipality in Mediterranean, Turkey

Mersin

Mersin is a large city and port on the Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey.

Plan a trip to Mersin→From Tarsus

It is the provincial capital of the Mersin Province. It is made up of four district governorates, each having its own municipality: Akdeniz, Mezitli, Toroslar and Yenişehir.

Get in

Getting to Mersin

Çukurova Airport (COV IATA) 50 km east is the nearest airport, with frequent flights from Istanbul (both IST and SAW), Ankara and Izmir. It opened in 2024 and replaced Adana, which was hemmed in by that city.

  1. 01
    Mersin Otogar is

    Three buses a day are direct from Istanbul, taking 14 hours via Gebze, Izmit, Adapazarı, Niğde and Tarsus.

  2. 02
    Mersin Ferry Terminal is east end
See

Worth seeing

  1. 01
    Grand Mosque

    First built in 1898 as "New Mosque", it was re-done in the 1970s in a bleak modern style.

  2. 02
    St Anthony Catholic Church
  3. 03
    Atatürk House Museum
  4. 04
    Muğdat Mosque

    Huge mosque (capacity 5500) built in the 1980s in traditional style with four minarets, and two more were added in the 2010s.

  5. 05
    Yümüktepe

    A tell or mound, the heaped-up ruins of 23 layers of occupation from 6300 BC in Neolithic times to about 200 AD.

Do

Things to do

Beach: Soli 12 km west is the closest, beyond Soli / Pompeiopolis ruins. Through town there's a pleasant waterfront but no beach, as it's reclaimed land. Congress and Exhibition Centre (Kongre ve Sergi Sarayı) is north end of Atatürk Park, 500 m from Grand Mosque. Mersin Cultural Centre is south end of the park at Atatürk Cd 40, and houses the opera and theatre.

Eat

Where to eat

Tantuni is finely minced fried meat and onion wrap. Haslets are offal such as intestines, lung, liver, kidneys, stomach, brain. They may be chopped into meals or made into soup. Cezerye is a mix of carrots, fig and spices, and sometimes nuts. Kerebic is a dough filled with pistachios and topped with vegetarian cream.

How locals move

Getting around Mersin the local way

  • Get inTake a dolmuş downtown: this may be included in your bus fare, enquire when booking.
  • Get inFrom Tarsus or Adana a dolmuş is slower than an inter-city coach but might bring you to city centre.
  • Get inAkgunlerdenizcilik ferries sail daily from Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus.
  • Get inThe "Feribot" is the year-round car ferry.
  • Get inFerries no longer sail from Syria or Lebanon.

From Wikivoyage: Mersin, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Wikimedia Commons (see file page), Wikimedia Commons.