Why go
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the Turkish National Movement led the War of Independence after the First World War. The sultanate ended in 1922, and the republic was proclaimed in Ankara in 1923. Those events give Ankara's role a clear historical meaning and help visitors distinguish the republican capital from the former Ottoman capital on the Bosphorus.
The full story
The Ottoman Empire's defeat in the First World War was followed by Allied occupation and plans to divide its territories. Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk, led a national movement based in Ankara. Its War of Independence overturned the proposed settlement and created the basis for a new state. The sultanate was abolished in 1922; international recognition followed through the Treaty of Lausanne, and the republic was proclaimed in 1923 with Ankara as its capital. That shift of capital is more than a map detail. Istanbul had been the seat of Byzantine and Ottoman empires, while Ankara became the center of the new republic. The same settlement also brought a compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey, reshaping communities on both sides of the Aegean. Later decades brought a move from single-party rule to multiparty politics, interrupted by military interventions. For a visitor, the most useful thread is the visible distinction between imperial Istanbul and republican Ankara, alongside the human upheaval that accompanied the state's founding.