Bingöl sits quietly inside the long story of eastern Anatolia, a land of empires, migrations, and mountain communities that have made their own way for centuries. The city itself is young, but the country around it has been crossed by Urartian armies, Roman roads, Seljuk caravans, and Ottoman governors. What survives today is a culture shaped by the highlands: herding, honey, hospitality, and a strong, quietly proud sense of home. This guide traces the history that made Bingöl and introduces the living traditions you will meet on the streets, in the pastures, and around the tea table.
The Name and the Land
Bingöl means a thousand lakes in Turkish, and the name reaches back to the ponds and small lakes that glint across the province’s highlands. It is a poetic name for a country of water, pasture, and stone.
The land is the first thing to know about the culture. Deep winters, short summers, and steep valleys shaped a people who move with the seasons, following their herds between the lowlands and the high yaylas above the tree line.
Geologists know the region for another reason: the province sits close to the meeting point of major fault lines, and the landscape itself records that restless history. Understanding the mountains, with their harsh winters and generous summers, helps you understand the people who live among them.
From Çapakçur to Bingöl
The town at the centre of the province was known for centuries as Çapakçur, a name with deep local roots. It was a modest settlement on the caravan routes that connected the plains of the south with the highlands of the north.
In 1945 the province was created and the town was renamed Bingöl, a deliberate choice that linked the young republic’s new administrative unit to the region’s most beautiful feature. The modern city grew from there.
The change of name did not erase the older world. Around the city, villages still carry the rhythms of the pre-republican era, and the landscapes the new name celebrated are the same ones that shaped the old one.
Peoples and Languages
The population of Bingöl is a mix of Turkish, Kurdish, and Zaza communities, and this diversity is the province’s quiet signature. Kurdish and Zazaki are spoken in the villages and on the streets alongside Turkish.
The three communities have lived interwoven for generations, sharing markets, marriages, graveyards, and feast days alike. Language here is a lived reality rather than a museum piece, and you will hear all three spoken within a single afternoon in the bazaar.
For the visitor, the practical point is simple: Turkish is the common bridge, and a few words of it are enough. The deeper point is cultural: Bingöl is a place where eastern Anatolia’s great ethnic mosaic is visible every day.
Faith and Daily Life
Islam shapes the rhythm of life in Bingöl, as it does across eastern Anatolia. The call to prayer marks the day, Friday brings families to the mosques, and the great feasts of the religious calendar are the year’s high points.
The province is predominantly Sunni, and village life is organised around the mosque, the market, and the family. During Ramadan the daytime rhythm slows, and the evening meal becomes a shared occasion.
Visitors are welcome in all of this, but modest dress and patience are appreciated. Observing quietly, and showing respect for prayer times, opens more doors than any guidebook tip.
Hospitality as Culture
If Bingöl has a religion beyond faith, it is hospitality. Guests are treated as a blessing, and the reflex to feed, house, and entertain them runs through every level of society.
Do not be surprised when a stranger insists you join them for tea, or when a village family urges you to stay for lunch. Refusing too firmly is taken as a small insult; accepting warmly is the key to the whole culture.
The rules are simple: accept what is offered, eat and drink what is placed before you, and offer something in return when you can, even if it is only a sincere thank you. The hospitality of the highlands is generous precisely because it expects nothing in return.
The Yayla Tradition
The summer pastures, the yaylas, are the beating heart of Bingöl’s traditional culture. Every June, families move their herds up to these green shelves above the tree line, and the highlands fill with sheep, cattle, and tents.
Life on the yayla follows an ancient calendar of milking, cheese-making, and grazing. The butter and cheese of the high pastures are famous across the region, and the summer months are when the province is most alive.
The tradition is under pressure, with fewer families making the full seasonal move, but it still defines the province’s image of itself. To see Bingöl at its most authentic, follow the herds upward in summer.
The Culture of Honey
Beekeeping has been part of the province’s life for as long as anyone remembers, and honey is woven into the local identity as deeply as the pastures themselves. Bingöl balı, the province’s honey, is now a protected product known across Turkey.
The honey culture is visible everywhere in summer: hives on the highland roadsides, jars in the bazaar, and honey at the centre of every breakfast table. Beekeeping is passed down through families, and the craft is taken seriously.
The summer honey festival celebrates this heritage, bringing beekeepers and visitors together. For a traveller, the honey is both a taste of the culture and the easiest way to take some of it home.
Festivals and Celebrations
The religious feasts are the anchor of Bingöl’s year, bringing families home from the cities and filling the streets with visiting relatives. The atmosphere during these days is warm, crowded, and full of food.
Summer brings the honey festival, the province’s most public celebration of its identity, with competitions, stalls, and visitors from across Turkey. Village weddings, which often run for several days, are the most vivid cultural events of all.
If you are invited to any celebration, go. The music, the food, and the dancing at a local wedding will teach you more about Bingöl culture in one evening than a shelf of books.
Crafts and Everyday Traditions
The material culture of Bingöl is modest and practical, rooted in the needs of the highlands. Carpets and kilims, woven by village women, carry patterns passed down for generations.
The bazaar culture is itself a tradition: haggling is polite theatre, and the weekly market days are social events as much as commercial ones. Buying from village stalls supports the oldest economy in the province.
Everyday objects, from the copper pots of the old kitchens to the woven saddlebags of the shepherds, tell the same story of a society that made everything it used. The same self-reliance still shapes the province today.
Bingöl Today
Modern Bingöl is a young city in a hurry to improve: new buildings, new roads, and new schools rise alongside the old rhythms. The population is notably young, and education is a family priority.
The tension between tradition and change is visible on every street. Minibuses and mobile phones share the road with flocks of sheep, and village grandmothers bargain beside students with the latest phones.
For the traveller, this is the interest of the place. Bingöl is not a museum of eastern Anatolia; it is eastern Anatolia in the middle of becoming something new, and watching that process is as absorbing as any monument.
Folklore, Music, and the Old Songs
The oral culture of the region runs deep. Long winter evenings were traditionally filled with stories, riddles, and the dengbu00eau017f tradition of sung poetry that still echoes across Kurdish, Zaza, and Turkish communities of the east.
Music follows the seasons and the gatherings. At weddings and feasts you will hear the drum and the zurna, the double-reed instrument that announces celebrations in village squares, while shepherds have their own long, unaccompanied songs for the loneliness of the pastures.
These traditions are not museum pieces. New generations keep the songs alive, adapting them to modern instruments and new subjects, and a traveller who asks respectfully about the music will often be treated to an impromptu performance, right there in the tea garden, that no stage could match.
The Memory of Earthquakes
The same fault lines that shaped the landscape have also written themselves into the province’s modern history. Bingu00f6l has experienced major earthquakes, including destructive events in 1971 and 2003 that levelled buildings and took lives.
The memory of those days runs deep, and it has shaped the province’s rebuilding. Newer buildings are built to stricter standards, and the disaster-response culture is more aware than in many regions.
For visitors, the practical lesson is simple: the region is seismically active, and it pays to note the exits of your hotel and to take earthquake advice from locals seriously. The resilience of the people, however, is the longer and more important story, and it is told every day in the rebuilt streets of the city.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important thing to know about Bingol history?
The province is young, created in 1945, but the region is ancient. The town itself was long known as Çapakçur, a caravan settlement, and the surrounding highlands have been home to herding communities for centuries, with the yayla tradition still alive today.
What languages are spoken in Bingol?
Turkish is the common language, but Kurdish and Zazaki are widely spoken in the villages and on the streets. All three communities live interwoven, and hearing several languages in one afternoon at the bazaar is perfectly normal.
How should visitors behave with local customs?
Dress modestly, especially in villages and at mosques, and be ready to accept tea or food when offered, since hospitality is a central value. Ask before photographing people, and be patient around prayer times and religious feasts.
All Over Information
The All Over Information editorial team researches and writes practical English-language guides to Turkey. Facts are checked against official and local sources before publication, prices are published as dated ranges rather than quotes, and guides are revised when things change. We accept no sponsored posts, paid placements or paid links.
More guides like this
Best Local Food in Bingol
Bingöl's kitchen is eastern Anatolian to its core: slow-cooked, generous, and built around the produce of the surrounding mountains.
Top Things to Do in Bingol
Bingöl does not shout about itself. There is no great palace, no famous museum, no postcard monument, and that is exactly what…
Day Trip Ideas from Bingol
Bingöl makes a surprisingly good base for exploring eastern Anatolia.
Where to Stay in Bingol
Bingöl is not a city of boutique hotels and rooftop pools, and that is fine, because nobody comes here for the lobby.
A First-Timer’s Guide to Bingol
Most travellers to eastern Turkey pass Bingöl by, and that is precisely the reason you should stop.