General İnformation About Tatlarin (Acıgöl) Underground (Subterranean) City Only a small part of this underground city, which is spread over a large area, could be cleaned. Only the first two floors are open to visitors. In this underground city, which has two discovered churches, the number of supply depots is high. The interior areas are quite wide. All these considerations suggest that this city may not be a civilian settlement, but a military garrison or a monastic complex.

The Tuz Gölü, also called Tatta in antiquity, is a closed-end lake surrounded by plateaus. He sources that feed the lake are insufficient, the river Melendiz (Aksaray) and river Pecenekozu (Sereflikochisar). In summer, because of evaporation, the lake dries into a layer of salt of about 30 centimeters, covering the mud. In winter the water get together again, but in its deepest part does not exceed 2 meters. Although it is the second largest lake in Turkey. With the 33%, is one of the world’s lakes with higher salinity, so is impossible to farm in the surroundings. Thus, the Tuz Gölü salt is one of the richest in the world. It gives 300 thousand tons of salt per year, 60% of the total production in Turkey. This salt can only be collected in the months of July and August when the lake dries. To ensure that it would be clean, the salt lake is collected only from the areas in which layer are more than 6 centimeters thick.