Ardahan

Ardahan is one of the border provinces at the East Anatolia Region of Türkiye, it is famous with appearance silhouette of Atatürk on Damal Dağları (mountains) in the border of the province. Each year between the dates 20 June - 20 July silhouette of Atatürk appears at 18:05 after a few minutes, it removes. At that times Damal festival assembled at Ardahan by pursuing Atatürk on the shadows of his silhouette.

Ardahan is really a small town high in the mountains, the smallest provincial capital in Turkey and indeed until 1993 it was a small town in the province of Kars. Since the district was made a province there was been new investment in government buildings and services but life in the cold, cold hills of Ardahan, which spends half the year under snow, is still a struggle. There are hotels mainly used by truck drivers and other travellers crossing into Georgia.

Kars Kafkas University has an institute in Ardahan and there is a sizeable military presence. The civil servants, academics and military officers stationed here all help to support the local economy. These people have their own clubs and guest houses, while in the town itself there are few social and cultural amenities apart from two or three cake shops and a kebab restaurant. Shopping is also limited.

This area is renowned for its hard yellow cheese kaşar and its geese.

50% of the regon is Kurdish and other turk- azeri etc

 This is attractive open countryside which however spends many months of the year under snow. At this altitude temperatures quite commonly reach -20 and can drop below freezing right up until May.

The local economy depends on farming and raising livestock. Until 1993 Ardahan was a district of the province of Kars, becoming a province in its own right has meant more investment in infrastructure, but still this is an impoverished area that since the 1950s has seen a large number of its people migrate to other parts of Turkey or abroad. The population declined from 170,000 people in 1990 to 119,000 in 2000. Ethnic groups in the region include Kurds, Georgians, and Azeri Turkish people.

There are two crossing points into the Samtskhe-Javakheti district of Georgia, one at Posof and the other (currently closed) at Cıldır. The Turkish military have a strong presence in this border district, another boost to the local economy.