Asarlık Tepeler is protected for a single landform: cuesta morphology, formed as clay beds of differing hardness wore away at different rates. The site was declared a natural monument on 22 August 1994 and covers 52 hectares.
It lies between the villages of Danışment and Oklalar in the Nallıhan district of Ankara, at 1,091 metres, within the Inner Anatolian climate zone. Under the national parks law it counts among those corners of the country that hold features and scientific value produced by nature itself. The name is also written Asırlık Tepeler.
This is a small and habitat-poor site, so its flora is not rich: 141 taxa from 37 families, of which eleven are endemic to Türkiye, an endemism rate of 7.8 per cent. Two of those endemics carry an IUCN category. Oxytropis argyroleuca is listed as critically endangered, and outside this monument it grows only on Sarıçalı Dağı to the west, which makes its range very narrow and this one of the places where it does best. Melilotus bicolor is listed as vulnerable and, within Türkiye, occurs only sparsely in western Anatolia. Alongside them the surveys found Anatolian black pine, Greek juniper, prickly juniper, Ephedra major and Ranunculus argyreus. The nature conservation directorate also notes that the ground is very well suited to teaching and scientific work in stratigraphy and geomorphology.
The animals observed here include the common toad, the variable-patterned night frog, the marsh frog, tortoise, the large green lizard, the nose-horned viper and the steppe lizard; mole rat, yellow-necked wood mouse, hedgehog, Anatolian squirrel, wild boar and weasel; and among birds sparrowhawk, long-legged buzzard, kestrel, chaffinch, white wagtail, great tit, rock nuthatch and robin.
Come prepared for a site with nothing on it. Because of its protection status there are no buildings or facilities at all, and the only thing laid out inside the monument is a walking route; research, survey and observation for scientific purposes require permission from the regional directorate. Access is by private vehicle only. The monument is 157 kilometres from the centre of Ankara and 21 from Nallıhan, and it joins the national road network by the Nallıhan-Bolu road, the D140, and from that by the Seben road which branches off at the Dereköy settlement. Danişment, the nearest settlement, is 1.5 kilometres away as the crow flies, and the nearest airport, Ankara Esenboğa, is 204 kilometres off.
- Designated
- 22.08.1994
Entry fee
- Marmara group 3 · category 3 · Per person
- 35 ₺
When to go
- Climate
- Across Ankara as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 0.4 °C in January to 23.6 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (52 mm) and lightest in August (13 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
