Until 1221 the city was called Kalonoros — "beautiful mountain" in Greek. It was held by the Armenian prince Kyr Vard. And it might all have stayed that way, were it not for a single military-political decision by the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad I.
The siege
In January 1221 the sultan approached the walls of Kalonoros with his cavalry. The city was impregnable from the sea and nearly impregnable from the mountains. The siege dragged on for four months — and ended in diplomacy rather than an assault: Prince Kyr Vard surrendered the fortress in exchange for lands in Akşehir and the sultan's marriage to his daughter.
The renaming
The city was given the name Alâiye — in honour of Alaeddin. The Turkish "Alanya" is a later, Ottoman-era corruption, finally made official only in 1935 by decree of Atatürk.
What remains
Most of the fortress walls (6.5 km), the Kızıl Kule, the Tersane, the Süleymaniye Mosque — all of it was built under Alaeddin or shortly afterwards. Today Alanya essentially shows tourists the Seljuk 13th century, lightly dusted with a resort-town 21st.
The fortress walls and the climb to the North Tower.