Doliche is strategically located at the transition between the Taurus foothills and the northern Syrian plateau on the main route between Cilicia and the Euphrates crossing at Zeugma. The urban area extends on a saddle-shaped natural hill, the Keber Tepe, on the edge of a fertile plain at the headwaters of the Nizip Çay. It is overlooked to the south by the summit of Dülük Baba Tepesi, where the temple of Iuppiter Dolichenus, the city’s most important sanctuary, was located.

Overall, the sources show Doliche as a local center of the northern Syrian interior with close ties to Zeugma, Samosata, Hierapolis and Kyrrhos. An important unique selling point, which also gave the city supra-regional significance during the imperial period, is Doliche’s religious importance as the home of the Iuppiter Dolichenus cult.

Doliche offers the best conditions for a paradigmatic study of the cultural milieu of a Hellenistic-Roman city in ancient northern Syria. No other urban settlement in this geographical area has not been built over, is accessible for archaeological research and has been well developed through extensive preliminary work.