Abstract
THE ANTEP DEFENCE HERITAGE AS AN ATTRACTION OF BATTLEFIELD TOURISM: A GEOGRAPHICAL EVALUATION IN TERMS OF ITS POTENTIAL AND TOURISM IN GAZİANTEP
Due to many important battles that occurred in Anatolian territories throughout the history such as Trojan War, Malazgirt War, Dardanelles War, and Independence War, Turkey has a rich heritage of battlefields that could be utilized within the context of battlefield tourism. When this heritage is offered to tourism, it will carry value within the context of protection of cultural heritage and development of social memory and national identity apart from generating tourism revenue. The study which is carried out in line with this awareness aims at featuring the heritage belonging to Antep Defense which makes up one of the unique and outstanding aspects of Gaziantep in the field of tourism and making contribution to the development of tourism in the city by determining its tourism potential. During the stage of determining heritage tourism and tourism potential, numerical data belonging to some organizations working in the field of tourism and historical sources were referred and also Geographic Information System was used for transferring the distribution of battlefields on the map.
Keywords
Gaziantep, Antep Defense, battlefield, tourism geography.