The economy of Afyonkarahisar is based on agriculture, industries and thermal tourism. Especially its agriculture is strongly developed from the fact, a large part of its population living in the countrysides. Which stimulated agricultural activities greatly.
Marble Afyonkarahisar produces an important chunk of Turkish processed marbles, it ranks second on processed marble exports and fourth on travertine. Afyon holds an important share of Turkish marble reserves, with some 12,2% of total Turkish reserves. Historically marble from Afyon was generally referred to as "Docimeaen marble" due to the place where it was mined,
Docimium. Afyon has unique marble types and colors, which were historically very renown and are unique to Afyon such as "Afyon white", historically known as "
Synnadic white", "Afyon Menekse", historically known as "
Pavonazzetto", and "Afyon kaplan postu", a less popular type. Docimaean marble was highly admired and valued for its unique colors and fine grained quality by ancient people such as the Romans. When the Romans took control over Docimaean quarries, they were impressed by the beautiful color combinations of the Docimaean Pavonazzetto, which is a type of white marble with purple veins. Emperors such as
Augustus,
Trajan and
Hadrian made extensive use of Docimaean marble to many of their major building projects. These include the
Pantheon,
Trajan's Forum and the
Basilica Aemilia.
Thermal sector The geography of Afyon has great geothermal activity. Hence, the place has plenty of
thermal springs. There are five main springs and all of them have high mineral content with temperatures ranging between 40 and 100 °C. The waters have strong healing properties to some diseases. As a result, plenty of thermal facilities formed over time. In time, Afyon has developed its thermal sector with more capacity, comfort and innovation. Afyon combined the traditional bath houses with 5-star resorts, the health benefits of the natural springs have made the thermal resorts more than a mere tourist attraction. Hospitals and universities have come in association with thermal resorts, to utilize the full health potentials of the thermals. As such,
Afyon Kocatepe University Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Hospital opened for that purpose. Afyon now has the largest residence capacity of thermal resorts,
Pharmaceuticals and morphine Almost a third of all the morphine produced in the world derives from alkaloids factory in Afyon, named as "Afyon Alkaloids". this large capacity is the byproduct of Afyon's poppy plantations. The pharmaceuticals derive from the opium of the poppy capsules. "Afyon Alkaloids" factory is the largest of its kind in the world, with high capacity processing ability and modern laboratories. The raw opium is put through a chain of biochemical processes, resulting into several types of morphine. In the Alkaloid Extraction Unit only base morphine is produced. In the adjacent Derivatives Unit half of the morphine extracted is converted to morphine hydrochloride, codeine, codeine phosphate, codeine sulphate, codeine hydrochloride, morphine sulphate, ethylmorphine hydrochloride.
Agriculture Livestocks Afyon breeds a large amount of livestock, its landscape and demography is suitable for this field. As such it ranks in the top 10 within Turkey in terms of amounts of sheep and cattle it has.
Meat and meat products As a result of being an important source of livestock, related sectors such as meat and meat products are also very productive in Afyon. Its one of the leading provinces in red meat production and has very prestigious brand marks of sausages, such as "Cumhuriyet Sausages".
Eggs Afyon is the sole leader in egg production within Turkey. It has the largest amount of laying hens, with a figure of 12,7 million. And produces a record amount of 6 million eggs per day.
Cherries and sour cherries Sour cherries are cultivated in Afyon in very large numbers, so much so that it became very iconic to Afyon. Every year, a sour cherry festival takes place in the Cay district. It is the largest producer of sour cherries in Turkey. The sour cherries grown in Afyon are of excellent quality because of the ideal climate they're grown in. For the same reason Afyon is also an ideal place for cherry cultivation. First quality cherries known as "Napolyon Cherries" are grown in abundance, its one of the top 5 leading provinces.
Poppy One of the iconic agricultural practices of Afyon is the cultivation of poppy. Afyon's climate is ideal for the cultivation of this plant, hence a large amount of poppy plantation occurs in this region. Though, a strong limitation came some decades ago from international laws, cause of the opium content of poppy plants peels. Nevertheless, Afyon is the largest producer of poppy in Turkey and accounts for a large amount of global production.
Potatoes and sugar-beets Afyon has a durable reputation in potato production, it produces around 8% of Turkish potato requirement. It ranks in the top 5 in potato, sugar-beets, cucumber and barley production. ==Climate==