Today a region of the northeastern Mediterranean coast in Turkey bounded by the Taurus Mountains to the north and the Anti-Taurus on the east. This is a reflection of the Roman Provinces of Rough and Smooth Cilicia. In the mid First Millennium B.C. Cilicia appears to have been largely the heir to Late Bronze Age Kizzuwatna and, therefore, to have extended on to the Central Anatolian Plateau for a considerable distance north of the Taurus. Following the fall of Assyria (612 B.C.) Cilicia was nominally under Babylonian control but was ruled by a local kings who bore the title Syennensis.

In Antiquity, Cilicia (Greek: Κιλικία) was the name of a region, now known as Çukurova, and often a political unit, on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), north of Cyprus.