Adana is located in the south eastern Mediterranean of Turkey. The city, which is 14,000 square kilometers in size, is located on the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers. It is the sixth largest city of Turkey, with 2.2 million inhabitants.The city is located at the foot of the Taurus Mountains and in the center of Çukurova, as a geographical and cultural region. In this context, Adana, a hinterland of about 7.2 million, is located in the central market. Adana has a total coastline of 160 km in the south of the Mediterranean sea, and in this region the Mediterranean climate shows its characteristics.
Throughout the history, Adana has been an important center of attraction thanks to its fertile lands and its trade routes passing through its mighty rivers and dams. According to the National Regional Development Strategy prepared by the Ministry of Development in Turkey, only Cukurova was determined as the potential metropolitan region after Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir in Turkey.
Adana is one of the first industrialized regions of Turkey. Product richness and proximity to raw materials in Cukurova, one of the most fertile plains in the world, brought together the industrialization. After the second half of the 19th century, cotton production began to develop rapidly in the fertile soil of Adana. Ginning and textile factories were opened as a result of this, which can be considered as Turkey’s first ones. The first international fair in the history of the Republic,the 'Agricultural Fair' was held in Adana in 1924 and the first private banks were established in Adana.
Today, approximately 40,000 companies operate in Adana. Exports of Adana have increased by 76% in the last 10 years and reached to 2 billion dollars. According to the 2018 datas; the city has 2.26 billion dollars import figure and total foreign trade volume exceeds 4 billion dollars. Thanks to its proximity to the Middle East, the city become a center of attraction for foreign companies and there are 386 foreign investors in the city.
There are 539 thousand hectares of agricultural land in Adana. With the value of TL 7.7 billion agricultural production, the city is the market leader throughout Turkey for citrus fruits, corn, watermelon, soybean, peanut, sunflower, cotton, honey production. 16% of the total manufacturing industry employment is in the food and beverage manufacturing sector. In recent years the city's total agriculture and food sector contribution to exports is 27%. In the city there are approximately 4,000 restaurants and 1,000 street food vendors located. In this context, the building blocks of the Adana economy are composed of agriculture, food and beverage sectors. The leadership of these sectors makes significant contributions to the city in the name of innovative developments in the field of gastronomy.
In Adana there are approximately 100 hotels, motels and other accommodation places that has a total bed capacity of 11,500. In 2018, about 1 million 200 thousand of national and foreign tourists came to Adana. In addition to this, 3711 people have visited Adana for Health Tourism. The total tourism income of Adana has been around 279 million dollars for 2018.
Adana has an important human resources pool with in its 60.000 students in 2 universities and 1.1 million workforce capacity.
