Hatay

Hatay is a province in southern Turkey, on the jap Mediterranean coast. The administrative capital is Antakya, and the alternative major city in the province is the port city of Iskenderun. It is bordered by way of Syria to the south and east and the Turkish provinces of Adana and Osmaniye to the north. The province is a part of Cukurova, a geographical, comparatively cheap and cultural region that covers the provinces of Mersin, Adana, Osmaniye, and Hatay.

There are border crossing points with Syria inside the district of Yayladagi and at Cilvegozu inside the district of Reyhanli. Sovereignty over the province remains disputed with neighbouring Syria, which claims that the province was separated from itself towards the stipulations of the French Mandate of Syria in the years following Syria's independence from the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

Although the two nations have remained usually non violent in their dispute over the territory, Syria has in no way officially renounced its claims to it. Settled for the reason that early Bronze Age, Hatay became as soon as part of the Akkadian Empire, then the Amorite Kingdom of Yamhad an Mitannis, then a succession of Hittites, the Neo-Hittite "Hattena" human beings that later gave the present day province of Hatay its name, then the Assyrians and Persians.