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Çankırı and Salt, a Bond of Five Thousand Years

When people think of Çankırı, they think of salt first. The rock salt galleries that lie east of the city, within the boundaries of Balıbağı Village, are the underground source of that memory.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye6 Kasım 2026
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Çankırı and Salt, a Bond of Five Thousand Years

When people think of Çankırı, they think of salt first. The rock salt galleries that lie east of the city, within the boundaries of Balıbağı Village, are the underground source of that memory. This article does not walk you through the cave step by step. Its aim is to describe the city's long relationship with salt and the process by which the galleries were opened to tourism. The information rests on governorate and municipality pages and on an encyclopedia entry. Because a separate Keşfet page describes the site itself, we will not repeat that text here.

A production history of five thousand years

The Çankırı Governorate page on the Underground Salt City says that this salt mine is known as a place where salt has been produced for roughly five thousand years. The same page notes that the mine lies east of Çankırı, within the boundaries of Balıbağı Village in the central district. The governorate's 2017 news item says that rock salt has been produced from the time of the Hittites to the present, again for roughly five thousand years. The encyclopedia entry reports only as an estimate that these deposits have been worked since Hittite times. For that reason, it is wiser to read the figure as an approximate span rather than as an exact date.

Caution is needed with statements of this kind, because production carried out underground often leaves no written record. The official account speaks of a long continuity instead of giving a precise starting date. What builds a city's identity is often not a single date but the same work being done in the same place across generations. In Çankırı, salt is exactly that kind of story of continuity.

What lies underground

The salt cave is less a natural cave than a system of voids opened by human hands. The encyclopedia entry defines it as a cave formed as a result of rock salt being extracted. In other words, the galleries came into being as layers of salt were dug out and removed. The governorate news item speaks in the same terms and refers to gallery voids whose production has been completed. This distinction matters. A reader should not look for a natural cave full of stalactites and stalagmites, but for the trace that production left behind.

The municipality's 2024 news item says the galleries lie 150 metres below ground and refers to the site as the Underground Salt City. That name shows that the voids were not simply left as a mining remnant but are presented as part of the city's identity. The same item also lists the Salt Festival and the Tourist Salt Train as signs of the bond the city has formed with salt.

The idea of tourism begins in 2013

According to the governorate, the effort to bring the cave into tourism goes back to 2013. The governorate asked the General Directorate of Mining Affairs to allocate the cave to it so that the gallery voids whose production was complete could be used for tourism. This request was approved by a letter dated 8 November 2013. After the allocation, the Special Provincial Administration began project work in 21 galleries within an area of 17.6 decares. According to the governorate's statement, this work was later interrupted for a time and picked up again in 2017.

The notable point here is that the idea rested not on stopping production but on re-using the voids where production had ended. Tourism was therefore conceived as a second use alongside a working mine. That framework still determines what a visitor can expect today.

The limits drawn by the protocol

On 11 May 2017, the Protocol on Bringing the Çankırı Salt Cave into Tourism and Its Operation was signed. Under the protocol, the right to operate the cave was granted to Çankırı Municipality for 20 years. The governorate news item also reports that the cave was transferred from the Special Provincial Administration to the municipality. It states that the work the municipality carries out will be decided on and supervised by an Advisory Board formed under the chairmanship of the governor.

The most instructive feature of the protocol is that its limits run in two directions. The municipality is made the sole authority and the sole party responsible for taking security measures, carrying out arrangements, and performing maintenance and repair in the area set aside for tourism. On the other side, it is written that no restriction can be imposed that would partly or wholly prevent the company producing salt in the cave from producing it. The same text also says that the appearance of the cave and of nature, and its natural structure, cannot be altered. Another item in the news piece says that, even while works continue, visitors will be shown suitable points as far as circumstances allow.

For this reason, there is a simple fact visitors should know. Not every gallery can be visited. The sections where production takes place are separate from the tourism area, and they cannot be entered. The boundaries of the section open to tourism are set by the municipality on safety grounds.

How the visitable section is determined

The fact that the operating right lies with the municipality means that the current visiting arrangements should be learned from municipal announcements. Opening days, entry conditions, and fees may change from time to time. The safest course is to check the municipality's current announcement before you go. Likewise, the Governorate's page on the Underground Salt City is a short official source summarising the location and general character of the site.

A note for photography enthusiasts. Light is limited in underground settings, and because the surfaces are salt, reflections can be unexpected. Our cover image is a frame taken from an exhibition inside the cave and shows one corner of the site. For details of the display areas inside, consult the announcements of the responsible institution.

Following the trace of salt in the city

The salt story need not be sought only underground. The municipality's Tourist Salt Train page presents a cultural excursion that departs from Ankara and arrives in Çankırı. According to the route on that page, the programme begins with the Underground Salt City. It then lists stops such as the Ferit Akalın Radio and Communication House, the Çankırı Culture House, the Historic Laundry, the Çankırı Kilim Museum, and the City Museum. The route also includes the Çivitçioğlu Madrasa and the Buğday Pazarı Madrasa as historic buildings. At the end of the programme there is a lunch break and free time in the historic streets of Çankırı.

The train runs on particular Saturdays in particular months, and the list of dates is published on the municipality page. What matters is that the salt cave is arranged not as a stand-alone stop in the city's tourism but as the first link in a one-day cultural programme. This shows that the cave is not a place cut off from the city.

The Çankırı Museum is a good complement in this context. The museum appears among the museums open to visitors on the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's museums website. To think about the underground world you saw in the cave together with the city's archaeological and ethnographic collections, you can make the museum your second stop of the same day. Check the museum's opening days and entry conditions at muze.gov.tr.

The salt festival and the city's identity

On the municipality's pages, the International Çankırı Salt Festival stands as a separate menu item next to the institutional tourism headings. The festival's own page is reached under that heading. Concert footage from 2025 on the municipality's home page shows that the event is a current city organisation. We will not describe the festival in detail here, because programmes change from year to year. Even so, it is worth noting that salt has stopped being merely a place name and has become a theme in the city's calendar.

This is an interesting transformation for a city. Salt, once only a raw material, is today the shared subject of a festival, a train excursion, and underground exhibits. The production side and the tourism side of the mine live together in the same place. When readers see this double layer, the cave stops being an ordinary photo stop.

Practical suggestions before you go

First, transport. The Underground Salt City lies within the boundaries of Balıbağı Village in the central district of Çankırı, to the east of the city centre. Public transport connections may vary with the season and with municipal arrangements. For that reason, learn your transport options from the municipality's current announcement. If you join the tourist train programme, city transfers are part of that programme.

Second, clothing. Underground settings can feel cool compared with the outside. The ground may be uneven, so choose shoes with a firm sole. Looking at salt surfaces from a distance instead of touching them both protects the environment and keeps you comfortable. Move through displays and walls in line with the visiting arrangements and the guidance of officials.

Third, expectations. In this article we have made no claims about health or treatment. We describe the Underground Salt City only as a historical and cultural place. We have also deliberately avoided comparative superlatives such as the world's largest or oldest. The most solid information on the official pages is that production is about five thousand years old. We chose to stay in that cautious language.

A final note

The story of salt in Çankırı is more than the story of a mine turning into a tourist destination. Rock salt has been produced for a very long time, and as the galleries emptied, the city looked for ways to give those voids new meaning. The allocation process that began in 2013, the 2017 protocol, and the salt-themed events added to city programmes today are stages of that search. The traveller's task is to set these stages side by side and understand the city. Go to the cave, but then go down into the city. Stop by the museum, the historic streets, and the market. The real trace of salt is there, in the everyday life of the city.

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