Western Taurus (Isaurian-Pisidian lake district)
Situation and Characteristics
Burdur, the provincial capital, lies in the approximately 50km/30mi-long Lake Burdur basin at the tip of a large alluvial fan formed by the Kurna Çayi. In an attempt to halt further erosion in the
surrounding countryside a program of reforestation has been launched southeast of Burdur as far as the Çeltikçi pass. The town has little in the way of industry, the tractor plant being the most important.
The lake basin was already settled in Hittite times. After 1600 B.C. the Hittites overran this Arzawan territory on several occasions - one of the sons-in-law of the legendary Hittite ruler Shuppiluliuma I (1370 B.C.) was Arzawan. The name Burdur first appears in use in 1330 when the writer-traveler Ibn Battuta described a castle on a high summit overlooking the little walled town, at that time belonging to the beylik Hamid (Egridir). Burdur became an Ottoman possession under Bayazit I in 1391. In 1971 it was shaken by a violent earthquake.