Guide
Kalkım Balıklı Kaplıca lies in the valley of the Kalkım stream, east of Kalkım village and about 6 km south of the town of Çetinkaya in Kangal district. Warm water seeps up into the alluvium along a fault line and has formed two pools. The larger spring, right beside the Çetinkaya–Malatya railway, flows at 30 litres a second at 28.0–28.6°C; the smaller one, between the railway and the stream, gives 5 litres a second at 28.1°C. Both drain into the Kalkım stream about 150 m to the north.
The pools hold the same fish as the better-known Kangal Balıklı Kaplıca, species of the carp family including Garra rufa, the so-called doctor fish, and the water, low in dissolved minerals, is chemically close to Kangal's. As at Kangal, it is said to be good for skin diseases such as psoriasis. No facilities have been built at the site. An area of 2,555 hectares around it was declared a thermal tourism centre in the Official Gazette on 5 June 2011.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Sivas as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -3.3 °C in January to 20.3 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (60 mm) and lightest in August (7 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
