Why it looks like this

Adana exists because of a river crossing. The Taşköprü — 'stone bridge' in Turkish — was built by the Romans over the Seyhan River and stayed in daily use into the 21st century, one of the oldest bridges in the world still serving a city. The old town grew on the west bank around that crossing.

Around it spreads the flat, fertile Çukurova plain. Cotton wealth in the 19th and 20th centuries pushed the city outward in broad, regular blocks, and dams on the Seyhan later added a lake to the city's northern edge.