Kahramanmaraş, city, southern Turkey. It is situated at the edge of a fertile plain below Ahır Mountain, east-northeast of Adana. The city is near the southern outlet of three important passes through the Taurus Mountains (from Göksun, Elbistan, and Malatya). Kahramanmaraş was the capital of the Hittite kingdom of Gurgum (c. 12th century bce). It was known to the 8th-century-bce conquering Assyrians as Markasi and, later, to the Romans as Germanicia Caesarea. The Arabs conquered it about 645 ce and used it as a base for their incursions into Asia Minor (Anatolia). The town, which was destroyed several times in