User surveys of Ankara's urban parks

The history of Ankara's urban parks goes back to the early days of the Turkish Republic. Some of the present large parks originate from parks established as part of the reconstruction works following the declaration of Ankara as the capital city of the newly founded Republic (1920s). User surveys are important sources of data to aid the planning, design and management processes of urban parks. This paper focuses on three parks in Ankara for survey and evaluation purposes. To analyse the use of the parks, a literature survey and a questionnaire survey were carried out together. The former describes the distributional structure of the parks whereas the latter makes assessments by exploring the characteristics of park users, user satisfaction, reported problems and requirements. The findings suggest that the use of each park has its own characteristics although there appear some similarities within some of the studied use areas. As a result, recommendations for future planning are suggested. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.