Erzincan is the capital of Erzincan Province in the eastern Anatolian region of Turkey.

On December 27, 1939 at 01:57 UTC, the city was hit by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, the most powerful to hit the country since the 1668 North Anatolia earthquake, which killed 32,700 people and injured more than 100,000. On the same day, the temperature was −30 °C (−22 °F), which caused many survivors of the earthquake to die from hypothermia. The city was almost completely destroyed and it took many years to recover. It remains the deadliest earthquake in Turkey and the deadliest earthquake in Anatolia since 1268.