Olive growing in Hatay

The centre of olive growing in Hatay is Altınözü. The district holds roughly 60% of the province's olive area and alone accounts for more than a quarter of its output — the leading centre both in area and in table-olive production.

Olives are also grown in Reyhanlı, Kırıkhan, Belen, Erzin, İskenderun and Yayladağı. The province's olive area is about 3.5% of Turkey's total, its tree stock about 6%.

Hatay's registered local varieties are Halhalı, Saurani and Sarı Haşebi. What is striking is that they have settled into different districts within the same province:

• Halhalı is grown mainly in Belen, Erzin, İskenderun, Kırıkhan and Yayladağı
• Saurani is widespread in Altınözü and Reyhanlı

The split shows that varietal distribution is not random even within one province: microclimate, altitude and local processing habits tie a variety to a place.

Alongside the local varieties, Karamani, Gemlik and Sarı Ulak are also widely grown — Hatay both keeps its own varieties and takes in others.

Hatay's olive oil past reaches into antiquity. Surface surveys around Antioch on the Orontes and the Kuseyr plateau have documented numerous olive oil workshops: crushing stones, lever-press installations, screw presses and collection basins.

These date to the Roman, Late Roman and Byzantine periods, with the peak of Antioch's olive oil production and export placed between the 2nd and 7th centuries AD. The 4th-century writer Libanius records that the city exported olive oil.

In detail: the olive oil workshops of Antioch

Hatay stands out for its processing capacity as much as its output. Industrial records list 75 registered olive oil pressing facilities in the province — meaning the fruit can be turned into oil without leaving the province.

State support has brought in modern continuous-system plants, and table-olive production has been expanding gradually alongside the traditional oil trade.

The sector also feeds a local downstream industry: olive oil production directly supports soap manufacturing in the region — the present-day economics of the tradition we covered in the history of olive oil soap.

Infrastructure figures come from the Eastern Mediterranean Development Agency's provincial report. Its production figures date from 2014-2016 and are therefore not repeated here; current figures follow the UZZK 2024-25 crop estimate.