From sea level to 2,365 metres in a single view.

0–10 m

Beach & dunes

Çıralı’s long beach is one of the Mediterranean nesting sites of the loggerhead turtle. From May to September females come ashore at night to lay; seven or eight weeks later the hatchlings run for the sea.

• Loggerhead turtle

10–600 m

Maquis & coastal pine

Evergreen scrub of strawberry tree with its peeling red bark, myrtle, mastic and kermes oak, under light forests of pine. Oleander lines the streams; in spring the slopes are full of orchids and cyclamen.

• Strawberry tree
• Myrtle
• Oleander
• Cyclamen

600–1,300 m

Turkish pine forest

Turkish (Calabrian) pine is the most widespread forest in the park. It is the home of Krüper’s nuthatch, a small bird found almost only in Türkiye, on Lesbos and in the Caucasus; look for it in the pines around the village. Bees here gather the sweet secretion of a scale insect that lives on these pines, and from it Türkiye produces most of the world’s pine honey.

• Turkish pine
• Krüper’s nuthatch
• Plane tree

You are here · 950 m

1,300–1,900 m

Cedar & fir

Above about 1,300 metres the first Taurus cedars appear, broad and flat-topped on the ridges, with Cilician fir in places. They are among the most valuable trees of the Mediterranean: their fragrant, rot-resistant timber built temples, palaces and ships across the ancient world, and the cedars of Lycia were prized for shipbuilding. Today most of the world’s Lebanon cedars grow in the Taurus Mountains of Türkiye. The species is listed as vulnerable, so these slow-growing trees, some of them centuries old, are protected. The air thins and cools; snow lies here through much of the winter.

• Taurus cedar
• Taurus fir
• Wild goat

1,900–2,365 m

Limestone summit

Above the trees: bare grey limestone, thorny cushion plants and alpine flowers that bloom after the snow melts. Wild goats move along the cliffs; eagles ride the updraughts above the summit of Tahtalı.

• Cushion plants
• Spring bulbs
• Eagles