[4] 19th-century German traveler Martin Hartmann noted that the town was made up of 150 Muslim and 30 Greek households.

[7] Today, Yayladağı itself is a small town, providing the district with a health centre, high schools and other basics.

This is a mountainous district with a typical Mediterranean climate of hot, dry summers and warm, wet winters, but being inland and high up, Yayladağı is cooler than most of Hatay, even seeing snow on the mountain peaks in winter.

The mountainsides are covered with pine, sandalwood and rough oak, or else shrubs including bay, thyme and oleander.

Yayladağı has a border crossing into Syria, and the village of Topraktutan, Turkey's southernmost point.