Republic of Turkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism

A combined portfolio for culture and tourism

The Republic of Turkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism directs state policy for museums, monuments, libraries, the stage arts, copyright and the tourism industry. Headquarters occupy a block on Ismet Inonu Boulevard in the Emek quarter of Ankara, and culture and tourism directorates in each of the 81 provinces carry the work into the field. Mehmet Nuri Ersoy has led the ministry since 2018.

Culture and tourism have formed a single ministry since April 2003, when Law No. 4848 merged two separate departments. A Ministry of Tourism had existed since 1963 and a Ministry of Culture since 1971, and the two portfolios had already been joined once for a period during the 1980s. The pairing reflects the structure of the sector in Turkiye, where remains of Hittite, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk and Ottoman settlement supply much of what visitors come to see, and where tourism ranks among the largest earners of foreign currency.

Custody of museums and heritage

State museums and archaeological sites operate under the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums. The network includes more than two hundred state museums, and the portfolio stretches from prehistoric settlements to Ottoman monuments, taking in the ancient city of Ephesus and the stone enclosures of Gobekli Tepe. The directorate licenses archaeological excavations, registers protected cultural property, runs conservation laboratories and pursues the return of artifacts taken out of the country unlawfully; its anti smuggling office has secured the return of thousands of objects over the past two decades. A museum pass scheme sells combined entry to museums and sites across the network; residents buy an annual museum card, while separate passes cover foreign visitors for shorter periods.

World heritage and restoration

Twenty two properties in Turkiye appear on the UNESCO World Heritage List, from the historic areas of Istanbul to the rock sites of Cappadocia, and some eighty further candidates wait on the tentative list. The newest entry, Sardis and the Lydian Tumuli of Bin Tepe, joined the list in 2025. The ministry prepares nomination files, oversees site management plans and finances the restoration of registered monuments, and its museum teams conduct rescue excavations at large construction sites such as the grounds of the Haydarpasa railway station in Istanbul.

Libraries and publications

More than a thousand public libraries answer to the ministry, together with manuscript libraries that hold medieval and Ottoman books. The National Library in Ankara, open to readers since 1948, keeps the national legal deposit collection. A separate manuscripts authority attached to the ministry conserves and digitizes early books and opens them to researchers through an online catalog. The publishing program issues scholarly editions and art books, and the TEDA scheme pays translators and foreign publishers to bring Turkish literature into other languages.

Stages, orchestras and copyright

Performing arts institutions attached to the ministry employ thousands of artists. The list includes:

• the State Theatres, with companies and stages in cities across the country
• the State Opera and Ballet, resident in Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir and other centers
• symphony orchestras and choirs administered by the fine arts directorate

The rebuilt Ataturk Cultural Center on Taksim Square in Istanbul, reopened in 2021, returned a large opera stage to the city under ministry management, and a culture route festival program stages concerts, exhibitions and street events in a growing list of cities. A copyright directorate registers works, certifies the collecting societies that manage rights for authors, performers and producers, and pursues piracy, while a cinema directorate channels production support to Turkish film. Grants also reach private theatres and independent film projects through annual calls.

The tourism administration

On the tourism side the ministry licenses and inspects hotels, holiday villages, marinas and other enterprises, issuing the operation certificates the trade requires. It designates culture and tourism development regions, allocates public land to qualified tourism investors under long term leases, supervises the tourist guiding profession and publishes the border and accommodation statistics on which the sector plans. Figures for arrivals, overnight stays and tourism income appear monthly and quarterly, and Turkiye ranks among the most visited countries in the world in those counts.

Promotion abroad belongs to the Turkiye Tourism Promotion and Development Agency, set up in July 2019 under the ministry's supervision and financed by contributions from tourism businesses. A safe tourism certification program introduced in 2020 set hygiene and inspection standards for hotels and transport, and a public hotline, Alo 176, takes questions and complaints about facilities and services. Provincial directorates run tourism information offices at airports, harbors and city squares; the Istanbul directorate alone lists offices from Sultanahmet to Sabiha Gokcen airport.

The English pages of the site outline the ministry's organization, list the affiliated institutions and carry announcements, statistics and legal texts, while news items track excavation seasons, festival calendars and exhibitions of Turkish collections abroad. Separate portals maintained by the ministry cover museums, manuscripts and general culture, and many services, from library membership to certificate applications, run through the national e-government gateway.

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