Hoşap Castle

Hoşap Castle rises on the steep, rugged rocks above the Hoşap stream, in the Gürpınar district of Van, right beside the Van-Hakkari highway. It is a striking sight from the road: a fortress that seems to grow out of the cliff. The inscription on the gate of the inner castle records that it was built in 1643 by Süleyman Bey of the Mahmudi emirs, who were subject to the Ottoman Empire. Local memory also links the hill to earlier, Urartian times.

The castle has an inner castle and an outer castle to the north. Its original gate, facing west, has survived intact. Above the doorway there is a Persian inscription about the building and reliefs of lions, which give the entrance its unmistakable look. The castle was abandoned in the middle of the nineteenth century, and because of that its interior structures have come down to us in an unusually complete state.

Inside you can wander among the remains of the palace and its bath, a mosque, a madrasa, fountains, cisterns, a dungeon and many rooms. Together they show how a small fortified town worked in the eastern Ottoman lands, which is why Hoşap counts among the most recognisable landmarks of the region.