Turkey's first international rally was held in 1972, starting and finishing in Istanbul. The concept of a WRC-candidate event was conceived in 1999, and the Anatolian Rally was established in 2000 with a base in İzmir. After observation by the FIA, the rally was elevated to official WRC reserve status.
For the 2001 edition, the coastal town of Antalya and nearby Kemer were chosen as start and finish venues, giving the event a southwestern Turkey identity in a holiday region. International entries arrived in force in 2002, with Sébastien Loeb competing in a Citroën Saxo and Juuso Pykälistö in a Peugeot 206 WRC.
Turkey debuted as a full WRC round in the 2003 season — a difficult introduction in which only 27 of 62 entered crews reached the finish. The first two years of WRC inclusion prioritised the Junior World Rally Championship category as a proving ground before the Production Car World Rally Championship class was added for 2005.
The 2005 edition drew 76 rally teams, of which 53 completed the total distance of 1,228 kilometres. Sébastien Loeb won the event for the second consecutive year, finishing in 4 hours, 21 minutes, 48 seconds alongside co-driver Daniel Elena.
The 2006 event was held in October around Kemer, Kumluca, and Antalya on rough gravel roads that climbed into mountain territory, occasionally reaching elevations where snow was possible. The service park and rally headquarters were based in Kemer. The 2008 edition saw the rally return after a gap and was won by Mikko Hirvonen ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala and Sébastien Loeb. Turkey was removed from the WRC calendar after 2010.
The Rally of Turkey was revived for the 2018 WRC season as a replacement for Rally Poland. The returned event used the town of Marmaris in Muğla Province as its base, in the southwestern Aegean region of Turkey. The Marmaris-based format offered a different character to the earlier Antalya-era event, with stages on the rough, rocky gravel tracks of the surrounding hills.
The Turkish stages in both the Antalya and Marmaris eras have been characterised by rough, rocky gravel roads that cause significant tyre wear and mechanical stress. The harsh surface punishes aggressive driving and demands careful management of tyres and suspension components. Attrition rates on Turkish stages have historically been high, making reliability a key factor in determining results and giving the event a reputation as a survival test as much as a pure speed contest.
The Rally of Turkey represents one of the WRC's most persistent returning events — absent from the calendar after 2010, it came back in 2018 and established a new identity around Marmaris. Turkey's geography, with its rocky mountain roads and extreme summer heat, creates conditions that test crews and equipment in ways few other events replicate. The event brought a distinctive regional character to the WRC calendar across its combined eras and helped establish rallying as a motorsport with deep roots in Anatolia stretching back to the early 1970s.