Çatalhöyük is a city founded 9,000 years ago, and this UNESCO World Heritage Site is well-worth visiting to see the remains of an ancient (like, REALLY ancient) city. But what makes it so incredibly special? Well, at the moment, Çatalhöyük is the first known city in the world – the first place where surrounding villages came together and formed a central location and began the sort of urban civilization that dominates the modern world.

What we see at this incredible site is a large city (upwards of 10,000 people at its height) where humans came together, and we see not only the practical applications of how houses formed, but also how the roots of art, religion, and culture came to form as our species grew more accustomed to a settled, sedentary lifestyle.

Equally incredible is the sheer success of the city. It existed for over 2,000 years as a city in various forms, a truly incredible feat compared with today's modern cities who've, in most cases, not lasted even half of that. So what is Çatalhöyük exactly? Let's take a closer look.

Approximately 14 hectares of space are open to the public, including a museum and a tourism office. The Western mound is closed though the others can be viewed. There's also a nice café for you to relax in and bask in the grandeur of ancient history.

When you enter, there's a small model that allows you take in all you're about to see and get a sense for the scale of it all. There are samples of what it might have looked like and copies of the wall paintings that were discovered.

As excavation work continues on into the present, sometimes various mounds may be closed to visitors.