Formerly Angora, the town had a thriving trade in fine, soft Angora goat hair and the garments made from it. Today this city at an altitude of 848 meters (2782 feet) is a sprawling metropolis of five million people, many of them employed in government ministries and embassies, in universities and schools, in hospitals and medical centres, and some in light industry on the outskirts.
Before the Turkish War of Independence brought Kemal Atatürk and his generals to Ankara as a wartime command post, Ankara was a small town with a Roman citadel on a high hill and a brisk trade in Angora wool, the long, fine hair of the Angora goat.
