Yalova was founded on the north-facing slopes of the Samanlı mountains, and it is known for its landscape, its beaches and above all its hot springs. Settlement in the district goes back a very long way, though the modern provincial centre, which was marshland before, was settled much later.
The mountains give a clue to the date. The Samanlı range running east to west in the south of the province was called Arganthonios in antiquity — a typically Anatolian name of its period, which shows that settlement here reaches back to the second millennium BC, the Hatti-Hittite era. The springs near the town were called Pythia Therma in antiquity, and the building and development of facilities around the healing hot mineral waters, used since the earliest period, is what made the town grow and gave it its name.
