Kırıkkale is the capital of the Kırıkkale Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. It is located 80 km east of Ankara. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 225,005 of which 205,078 live in the city of Kırıkkale.[1][2] The name of the city means broken castle.
The town of Kırıkkale is located on the Ankara-Kayseri railway near the Kızıl River in central Turkey. Formerly a village, it owes its rapid rise in population mainly to the establishment of steel mills in the 1950s. These works, among the largest in the country, specialize in high-quality alloy steel and machinery. In the 1960s chemical plants were added.