1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
Türkiye
Compare this sourced profile of Van, Türkiye before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Van—525,016, Europe/Istanbul, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: city in Turkey.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Van is GeoNames ID 298117. Its recorded administrative path is Van → Türkiye, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Van occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-14; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Van ranks 1,077 by recorded population. Inside the 26 selected Türkiye entries it ranks 22; inside the 243 entries in its broad region it ranks 225. Its 525,016 population value is 0.66 times the 792,110 median for the country cohort and 0.58 times the 902,588 regional median. Van sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected Türkiye entries. Van's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Van's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Orūmīyeh at 181.53 km with 577,307 recorded people; Yerevan at 210.848 km with 1,144,700 recorded people; Erzurum at 240.117 km with 767,848 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 58.587 km. Compared with Orūmīyeh, Van's recorded population is 0.91 times as large. Against Van, Orūmīyeh follows West Azerbaijan → Iran in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Iran cohort rather than Türkiye, uses Asia/Tehran instead of Europe/Istanbul, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Van's. Against Van, Yerevan follows Yerevan → Armenia in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the selected Armenia cohort rather than Türkiye, uses Asia/Yerevan instead of Europe/Istanbul, and carries capital of a political entity rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Van's. Against Van, Erzurum follows Erzurum → Türkiye in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected Türkiye cohort, uses the shared Europe/Istanbul identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Van's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 954 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Van's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 298117, the coordinate pair 38.4946 / 43.3832, country rank 22 of 26, and neighbor GeoNames 121801 at 181.53 km bind Van to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Van's reference point is 38.4946° north and 43.3832° east. The IANA identifier Europe/Istanbul is shared by 26 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Van's row carries a first-order administrative label but no second-order label. Van's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Van's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Van, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Van's closest other entries in this atlas are Orūmīyeh (181.53 km), Yerevan (210.848 km), Erzurum (240.117 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Van, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-14; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.