Hattusa (also known as Hattusas or Hattush) was the capital of the Hittite Empire. It was located near the modern-day village of formerly known as Boğazköy, now named Boğazkale, in Turkey, and was set in a loop of the Kizil Irmak river (the Halys of Antiquity) in central Anatolia, about 145 km (90 miles) east of Ankara. Before 2000 BC a settlement of the apparently indigenous Hatti people was established on sites that had been occupied even earlier. In the 19th and 18th centuries BC, merchants from Ashur in Assyria established a trading post here, setting up in their own separate quarter of the city. Hattusa is also one of nine sites in Turkey currently included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.