History

Though first fortified in the Hellenistic period following the area's conquest by Alexander the Great, the castle rock was likely inhabited under the Hittites and the Persian Empire.Finds in the nearby Kadrini cave indicate occupation during the Paleolithic era as far back as 20,000 BC.Left to Ptolemy I Soter after 323 BC, his dynasty maintained loose control over the mainly Isaurian population, and the area became a popular spot for Mediterranean pirates who were at times loyal to Diodotus Tryphon of the Seleucid kingdom.This period ended after the city's incorporation into the Pamphylia province of the Roman Republic by Pompey in 67 BC, with the Battle of Korakesion fought in the city's harbor.After the Empire's collapse and split, the city remained under Byzantine influence, becoming a suffragan of Side, in the metropolis of Pamphylia Prima. Islam arrived in the 7th century, and 681 marked the end of a bishopric in Alanya.The area fell from Byzantine control after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 to tribes of Seljuk Turks, only to be returned in 1120 by John II Komnenos.

Seljuk rule saw the golden age of the city, and it can be considered the winter capital of their empire.Building projects, including the twin citadel, city walls, arsenal, and Red Tower made it an important seaport for western Mediterranean trade, particularly with Ayyubid Egypt and the Italian city-states.Kayqubad also constructed numerous gardens and pavilions outside the walls, and many of his works can still be found in the city. These were likely financed by his own treasury and by the local emirs', and constructed by the contractor Abu 'Ali al-Kattani al-Halabi.

At the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1242, the Mongol hordes broke the Seljuk hegemony in Anatolia, and Sultan Gıyaseddin Keyhüsrev II died in the city in 1246. Alanya was then subject to a series of invasions from Anatolian Turkish Beyliks. In 1293, the Karamanoğlu dynasty took control after Mecdüddin Mahmud conquered the city, but their rule was intermittent.Lusignans from the Cyprus briefly overturned the then ruling Hamidoğlu Beylik in 1371.The Karamanoğlu sold the city in 1427 to the Mamluks of Egypt for a period before the general Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1471 incorporated it into the growing Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans extended their rule in 1477 when they brought the main shipping trade, lumber, then mostly done by Venetians, under the government monopoly.On September 6, 1608, the city rebuffed an attack by the Order of Saint Stephen from the Republic of Venice.In 1571 the Ottomans designated the city part of the province of Cyprus, then later under Konya, and in 1868 under Antalya, as it is today. After World War I, Alanya was nominally partitioned de jure in the 1917 Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne to Italy, before returning to the Turkish Republic in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne.

Tourism in the region started among Turks who came to Alanya in the 1960s for the alleged healing properties of Damlataş Cave, and later the access provided by Antalya Airport allowed the town to grow into an international resort. Strong population growth through the 1990s was a result of immigration to the city, and has driven a rapid modernization of the infrastructure.