Mount Erek

Varagavank (Armenian: Վարագավանք, 'Monastery of Varag'; Turkish: Yedi Kilise, 'Seven Churches') was an Armenian monastery on the slopes of Mount Erek (Varag), 9 km (5.6 mi) southeast of the city of Van, in eastern Turkey. The monastery was founded in the early 11th century by Senekerim-Hovhannes Artsruni, the Armenian King of Vaspurakan, on a preexisting religious site. Initially serving as the necropolis of the Artsruni kings, it eventually became the seat of the archbishop of the Armenian Church in Van. The monastery has been described as one of the great monastic centers of the Armenian church by Ara Sarafian and the richest and most celebrated monastery of the Lake Van area by Robert H. Hewsen. During the Armenian genocide, in April–May 1915, the Turkish army attacked, burned, and destroyed much of the monastery. More of it was destroyed in the 1960s, although some sections are still extant.

Bostaniçi is a neighbourhood of the municipality and district of İpekyolu, Van Province, Turkey. Its population is 31,714 (2022). Before the 2013 reorganisation, it was a town (belde) in the central district of Van Province. It lies within the metropolitan area of the city of Van. The Armenian name of the town was Sghka. Bostaniçi is located at the foot of Mount Erek (Erek Dağı), the highest mountain of Van.

Tuşba is a municipality and district of Van Province, Turkey. Its area is 1,948 km2, and its population is 163,301 (2022). The district Tuşba was created at the 2013 reorganisation from part of the former central district of Van, along with the new district İpekyolu. It covers the northern part of the agglomeration of Van and the adjacent countryside. The name Tuşba refers to Tushpa, the capital of the 1st millennium BC Urartu kingdom which was situated in Van.

Rusahinili ("city of (King) Rusa I)", modern Toprakkale (Turkey), is an ancient Urartian fortress built by Rusa I, located near the modern city of Van in eastern Turkey. The site has been excavated by archaeological teams from Germany, the United Kingdom, and other countries.

Van (Armenian: Վան; Kurdish: Wan; Syriac: ܘܢ) is a city in eastern Turkey's Van Province, on the eastern shore of Lake Van. It is the capital and largest city of Van Province. Van has a long history as a major urban area. It has been a large city since the first millennium BCE, initially as Tushpa, the capital of the kingdom of Urartu from the 9th century BCE to the 6th century BCE, and later as the center of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan. Turkic presence in Van and in the rest of Anatolia started as a result of Seljuk victory at the Battle of Malazgirt (1071) against the Byzantine Empire. Van was densely populated by Armenians until the Armenian genocide in the 1910s. Today, it is mostly inhabited by Kurds.

The occupation of Western Armenia by the Russian Empire during World War I began in 1915 and was formally ended by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. It was sometimes referred to as the Republic of Van by Armenians. Aram Manukian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was the de facto head until July 1915. It was briefly referred to as "Free Vaspurakan". After a setback beginning in August 1915, it was re-established in June 1916. The region was allocated to Russia by the Allies in April 1916 under the Sazonov–Paléologue Agreement. From December 1917, it was under Transcaucasian Commissariat, with Hakob Zavriev as the Commissar, and during the early stages of the establishment of First Republic of Armenia, it was included with other Armenian National Councils in a briefly unified Armenia. This provisional government relied on Armenian volunteer units, forming an administrative structure after the siege of Van around April 1915. Dominant representation was from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Aram Manukian, or "Aram of Van," was the administration's most famous governor.

The defense of Van (Armenian: Վանի հերոսամարտ, romanized: Vani herosamart) and in Russian Van operation (Russian: Ванская операция, romanized: Vanskaya operatsia) was the armed resistance of the Armenian population of Van and Russian army against the Ottoman Empire's attempts to massacre the Ottoman Armenian population of the Van Vilayet in the 1915 Armenian genocide. Several contemporaneous observers and later historians have concluded that the Ottoman government deliberately instigated an armed Armenian resistance in the city and then used this insurgency as the main pretext to justify beginning the deportation and slaughter of Armenians throughout the empire. Witness reports agree that the Armenian posture at Van was defensive and an act of resistance to massacre. The self-defense action is frequently cited in Armenian genocide denial literature; it has become "the alpha and omega of the plea of 'military necessity'" to excuse the genocide and portray the persecution of Armenians as justified.

Vanspor FK, formerly Van Büyükşehir Belediyespor, is a Turkish professional football club based in Van, a city in eastern Turkey.

Van railway station (Turkish: Van garı) is the main railway station in Van, Turkey. Up until July 2015, the Trans-Asia Express, from Tehran, Iran, stopped at the station. The train would continue to the Van Pier, where passengers would travel to Tatvan via ferry, and the western half of the train would continue to Ankara. As of mid-2015, freight trains are the only rail traffic at the station. However, as of September 2018, a twice weekly service to Tabriz is due to resume. Van station was opened in 1971 by the Turkish State Railways.

İpekyolu is a municipality and district of Van Province, Turkey. Its area is 956 km2, and its population is 348,046 (2022). The district İpekyolu was created at the 2013 reorganisation from part of the former central district of Van, along with the new district Tuşba. It covers the central and eastern part of the agglomeration of Van and the adjacent countryside. The name İpekyolu means Silk Road; Van was an important stop on the Silk Road.

Tushpa (Armenian: Տոսպ, Տուշպա֊Վան Tosp, Tushpa-Van, Akkadian: Turuspa, from Urartian tur-, to destroy i.e. victorious) was the 9th-century BC capital of Urartu, later becoming known as Van which is derived from Biainili, the native name of Urartu. The ancient ruins are located just west of Van and east of Lake Van in the Van Province of Turkey. In 2016 it was inscribed in the Tentative list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey. It was possibly pronounced as "Tospa" in ancient times as there was no symbolic O equivalent in Akkadian cuneiform so the symbol used for U was frequently substituted.

Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom centered around the Armenian highlands between Lake Van, Lake Urmia, and Lake Sevan. The territory of the ancient kingdom of Urartu extended over the modern frontiers of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia. Its kings left behind cuneiform inscriptions in the Urartian language, a member of the Hurro-Urartian language family. Urartu extended from the Euphrates in the west 850 km2 to the region west of Ardabil in Iran, and 500 km2 from Lake Çıldır near Ardahan in Turkey to the region of Rawandiz in Iraqi Kurdistan. The kingdom emerged in the mid-9th century BC and dominated the Armenian Highlands in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Urartu frequently warred with Assyria and became, for a time, the most powerful state in the Near East. Weakened by constant conflict, it was eventually conquered, either by the Iranian Medes in the early 6th century BC or by Cyrus the Great in the middle of the 6th century BC. Archaeologically, it is noted for its large fortresses and sophisticated metalwork.