Historically, Gevaş was for some time the main town of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan and later between the 14th and 15th centuries the centre of a small Kurdish emirate. In their time the settlement had moved nearer to the lake.[2] Later the town was incorporated in the Ottoman Empire. Before World War I, the district had a Muslim majority with a large Christian Armenian minority.
Main sights include surviving ruins of the castle, the monumental tomb known as Halime Hatun Kümbeti, built in 1358, very likely for the daughter of a local emir,[2] a mosque built before 1446 (restoration in that year), the tomb of Sheikh Ibrahim, father of Halime Hatun[2] as well as the ruins of an Armenian church in Ili, probably built after 941 and an Armenian Church/monastery on Kuşadası Island west of Aghtamar Island.[2]
