his town, occasionally also called Karaköse or Karakilise, is the administrative centre of the province of the same name, and is about 230 km north of Van in the valley of the Murat Nehri, the largest tributary of the upper Euphrates. The enormous Ararat massif which towers over the town to the NE is called Agri Dagi in Turkish, after the town. The volcanic cone of Ararat, which last erupted in 1840, is the highest mountain in Turkey (16,945 ƒt.); the next highest is Küçük Agri Dagi at 12,877 ƒt. Geologically Ararat consists of alternating layers of lava and tufa.

The mountain still catches the imagination as the possible landing-place of Noah's Ark, and visitors who know their Bible are always keen to claim that they have found timbers from the boat, despite the fact that serious Old Testament research has established that the sites involved in the early history of Israel are to be found much further south.