The earliest historical records of Anatolia are from the Akkadian Empire under Sargon in the 24th century BCE.

The region is famous for exporting various raw materials.

The Assyrian Empire claims the resources, notably silver.

One of the numerous Assyrian cuneiform records found in Anatolia at Kanesh uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines.

Unlike the Akkadians and the Assyrians, whose Anatolian possessions are peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia, the Hittites are centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia.

They are speakers of an Indo-European language known as the "language of Nesa".

Originating from Nesa, they conquer Hattusa in the 18th century BCE, imposing themselves over a Hurrian speaking population.

During the Late Bronze Age, they create an empire, the Hittite New Kingdom, which reachesits height in the 14th century BCE.

The empire includes a large part of Anatolia, northwestern Syria and upper Mesopotamia.

After 1180 BCE, the empire disintegrates into several independent "Neo-Hittite" states.

Ancient Anatolia is subdivided by modern scholars into various regions named after the people that occupied them, such as Lydia, Lycia, Caria, Mysia, Bithynia, Phrygia, Galatia, Lycaonia, Pisidia, Paphlagonia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia.Beginning with the Bronze Age Collapse at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the west coast of Anatolia is settled by Ionian Greeks.