Derinkuyu ("deep well") (Cappadocian Greek: Μαλακοπή; Latin: Malacopia) is a town in Nevşehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey.

[4] The city contained food stores, kitchens, stalls, churches, wine and oil presses, ventilation shafts, wells, and a religious school.

[8] The underground city was greatly expanded in the middle Byzantine period to serve as a refuge from the raids of the Umayyad Arab and Abbasid armies, during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780-1180).

As late as the 20th century the town's inhabitants, called Cappadocian Greeks, were still using the underground chambers to escape periodic waves of Ottoman persecution.

The Cambridge linguist Dawkins, who spent time in the towns from 1910-1911 while writing his book on Cappadocian Greek, wrote: "[T]heir use as places of refuge in time of danger is indicated by their name καταφύγια, and when the news came of the recent massacres at Adana [in 1909], a great part of the population at Axo took refuge in these underground chambers, and for some nights did not venture to sleep above ground.