Ankara, Turkey
Ankara, formerly known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey, located in Central Anatolia. With a population of 4,587,558 in the urban centre (2014) and 5,150,072 in its province (2015), it is Turkey's second largest city behind Istanbul. Ankara was Atatürk's headquarters from 1920 and has been the capital of the Republic of Turkey since its founding in 1923, replacing Istanbul following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The government is a prominent employer but Ankara is also an important commercial and industrial city, located at the centre of Turkey's road and railway networks. The city gave its name to the Angora wool shorn from Angora rabbits, the long-haired Angora goat (the source of mohair), and the Angora cat. The area is also known for its pears, honey, and muscat grapes. Although situated in one of the driest places of Turkey and surrounded mostly by steppe vegetation except for the forested areas on the southern periphery, Ankara can be considered a green city in terms of green areas per inhabitant, which is 72 m2 per head. Ankara is a very old city with various Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman archaeological sites. The historical centre of town is a rocky hill rising 150 m over the left bank of the Ankara Çayı, a tributary of the Sakarya River, the classical Sangarius. The hill remains crowned by the ruins of the old citadel. Although few of its outworks have survived, there are well-preserved examples of Roman and Ottoman architecture throughout the city, the most remarkable being the 20 BC Temple of Augustus and Rome that boasts the Monumentum Ancyranum, the inscription recording the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. More information is available on Wikipedia
Today our tour over capital cities, stops over Ankara, located in central Turkey, it is both capital of the country and of Ankara Province. It is principally a residential city and government seat, but a number of small industries produce carpets, leather goods, wine, farm implements, and cement. Ankara is an important market and processing centre for mohair and for the fine fruit and wheat grown in the surrounding region. It is a city of contrasts. The old quarter, built around the ruins of an ancient citadel, has narrow, winding streets and crowded buildings. The new city, laid out in 1928, is spacious and well planned, with broad boulevards, libraries, museums, embassies, government buildings, and fashionable shops and hotels. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations contains a notable collection of Hittite artefacts. These two images captured by the Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellites with a time window (before / after) of 30 years, aim to show the increase in urban change of the city and surrounding area during this temporal window. Notable in this overlay of the images is the transformation of Ankara and the large area of urban development created around the centre of the city. Another aim of these images is to promote the opportunity to download Landsat data through the ESA portals, where images captured every day are made available in near real time to the users and the scientific community. Landsat full resolution data products are freely available for immediate download at: 
View large format slider View Landsat 8 OLI high resolution image (JPG 2.9 MB)
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