The regional center of Çumra is an important station on the Istanbul to Baghdad railroad and also lies at the heart of the 50,000ha./123,500 acre Çumra irrigation zone in the Konya Ovasi. This irrigated area, the first such enterprise in the Middle East, was established by a German company before the First World War. The town grew up after 1912
around the once uninhabited station of Içeri Çumra which is situated a little further to the west when political refugees from the Balkan wars began to arrive. Nearby are the neolithic excavations of Çatalhüyük.