Guide
Afyonkarahisar Castle stands in the centre of the city on a natural rock mass rising 226 metres above the ground, on an extinct volcano.
The castle was used as a stronghold around 1350 BC during the Arzawa campaign of the Hittite emperor Mursili II, when it was called Hapanuwa. In the Roman and Byzantine periods it was known as Akroinon, and from the Seljuk dynasty onward as Karahisar.
Because the Seljuk sultan Alâeddin Keykubad I kept his treasury in this castle it was also called Hisar-ı Devlet, the castle of the state. In the time of the Seljuk vizier Sahip Ata Fahrettin Ali its name became Karahisar-ı Sahip. Selim II, who had it repaired in 1573, gave the castle the name Afyonkarahisar after the opium grown in the district.
