Derinkuyu Underground City

Derinkuyu Underground City claimed as the biggest underground city in Turkey in Derinkuyu District that is situated 40km from Goreme (30 minute drive). There are about 600 outside doors to the city, hidden in the courtyards of surface dwellings. Derinkuyu Underground City is an ancient multi-level underground city with its eleven floors-though many floors have not been excavated- extending to a depth of approximately 85 m, it was large enough to shelter tens of thousands of people together with their livestock and food stores. Derinkuyu Underground City is a part of underground city complex in Cappadocia , Turkey, with the distants among the underground cities is quiet far and was connected by miles of long tunnels.More info:Best Place To Stay in Derinkuyu

More info: Top Attraction in Derinkuyu

Derinkuyu underground city  has a unique on its part located on the second floor, it is a spacious room with a barrel vaulted ceiling. It has been reported that this room was used as a religious school and the left rooms for studies. Between the third and fourth levels is a vertical staircase. This passage way leads to a cruciform church on the lowest level.

The city could be closed from inside with large stone doors, 1-1.5 m high with a width of 30-50cm and weight reached 200-500 kg. With storerooms and wells that made long stays possible.

The city is  complete with wells, chimneys for air circulation, niches for oil lamps, stores, water tanks, stables and areas where the dead could be placed until such time as conditions on the surface would allow their proper disposal.

Before used as a tourist attraction, Derinkuyu Underground city had once been a hiding place for Christians who fled from the people who hunt them. Besides being used as a refuge when they came under attack from Arab citizens, it also functioned as a place for religious activities. Scarying the threat of  underground Christians, the Arab attackers try to make them to leave the place with a way to poison water sources in the Derinkuyu.region