Revitalization with cultural tourism in historical cities which lost their character: Planning suggestions in the case of Siirt

The phenomenon of the city is a phenomenon that can be considered almost as old as the concept of civilization. Cities are environments of perception and memory, outside of physical boundaries and definitions, where people develop a culture of living together. They produce and consume what is produced, meet their individual needs and come together to either merge with the society or form a new society. Societies, as a result of the impositions they have accepted consciously or unconsciously, like individuals, have abandoned the historical city centers, which have a history of millennia and carry the traces of an accumulation reaching them from their ancestors in their streets, and have left these ancient places to decay and disappear in every sense. Our study area, Siirt is an ancient city of Mesopotamia, the oldest known settlement on earth, just like itself. Siirt, which has a history of millennia, is one of our rare cities that awaits to be discovered with its tangible and intangible cultural heritage and offers versatile alternatives in terms of tourism. Siirt, which expects to be a center of attraction with its historical artifacts and cultural aspects as well as its natural beauties, is losing its ancient values and losing its identity day by day. In this study, solutions are offered for the reconstruction of the historical city center of Siirt, both in terms of structural and socio-cultural terms, reinforcing the sense of belonging to Siirt by revealing the tangible and intangible values and images of the city, and the revitalization of the city, which has begun to lose its identity, through tourism.