Mosques in Türkiye

Türkiye is home to one of the largest and oldest mosque networks in the world, with well over ninety thousand active places of worship. Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school forms the majority, alongside a significant Alevi community and smaller Shia and Sufi traditions. Anatolia has been at the heart of Islamic civilisation for a thousand years, and the country still carries much of the Ottoman religious and architectural heritage. This page brings together the historical, geographical and practical landmarks to find your way among the Turkish mosques listed on the map.

A thousand years of Islamic Anatolia

Islam took root in Anatolia with the Seljuk victory at Manzikert in 1071, and the following centuries saw the region become a major centre of learning, mysticism and architecture. Konya became the home of Rumi and the Mevlevi Sufi order. The Ottoman Empire, from Bursa and Edirne to Istanbul after 1453, developed a mosque tradition that reached its peak under the architect Sinan in the sixteenth century, with masterpieces such as the Süleymaniye in Istanbul and the Selimiye in Edirne.

The main religious centres

Istanbul concentrates the most famous mosques in the country, from the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque, to the Süleymaniye, the Fatih Mosque, the Eyüp Sultan Mosque and Hagia Sophia, which returned to use as a mosque in 2020. The Çamlıca Mosque on the Asian side, inaugurated in 2019, is the largest in the country. Ankara, the capital, holds the vast Kocatepe Mosque and the modern Melike Hatun Mosque. Bursa preserves the Great Mosque and the Green Mosque, jewels of early Ottoman architecture, while Edirne, Konya, Erzurum, Diyarbakır and Şanlıurfa each hold their own historical layers.

The mosque network

The Presidency of Religious Affairs, known as the Diyanet, oversees imams, khutbah content and the upkeep of mosques across the country. That centralisation gives Turkish religious life a strong national consistency, while local Sufi orders, regional saints and Alevi cemevis add their own traditions. Neighbourhood mosques handle the five daily prayers and the Friday sermon, and are often surrounded by a small courtyard, ablution fountains and a cemetery.

Practical guidance

Turkish mosques follow the five daily prayers, with Friday standing out as the high point of the week. Ramadan reshapes the pace of daily life, with tarawih night prayers every evening and the sound of the mahya, illuminated messages strung between the minarets of great mosques. Most historical mosques, in Istanbul and elsewhere, welcome non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times, and Türkiye has a long tradition of open, tourist-friendly access to its major landmarks. Modest dress is expected: shoulders and legs covered, hair covered for women, shoes removed at the entrance.

How to use this directory

The interactive map above brings together the Turkish mosques listed from OpenStreetMap data. Because the country holds tens of thousands of mosques, the map only loads the ones visible in the current view. Zoom in to reveal the full detail of a neighbourhood or a small town. City pages will strengthen this section in the months ahead, starting with Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.