Defne

Defne is a new intracity district and second level municipality in Hatay Province, Turkey. According to Law act no 6360, all Turkish provinces with a population more than 750000, were declared metropolitan municipality. The law also created new districts within the capital city which have second level municipalities in addition the metropolitan municipality. Pamukkale is one of them.

Thus after 2014 the present Hatay central district was split into two. A part was named Defne and the name Hatay was reserved for the metropolitan municipality. (Defne means laurus which is one of the agricultural products of Hatay Province; it is also related to the ancient suburb of Antioch, Daphne.)

Rural area

There were 9 towns and 24 villages in the rural area of Defne district. Now their official status became "neighborhood of Defne".