Gürpinar is a district of Van Province and 20 km (12 mi) south of the provincial capital Van. With an area of 4,700 km², Gürpinar is the largest district of Turkey. It has 79 villages and several places of historical interest. Much of the residents of this area speak Kurmanci, the most commonly spoken dialect of the Kurdish language.

The area's old name and Armenian name was "Hayots-tzor", meaning Valley of the Armenians. Its Kurdish name is "Payizava".

Historical places include:

• Hosap Castle
• Haykaberd Urartian castle
• Surp Marinos Monastery
• Zernek castle near Hamurkesen, Van
• Dar Mariam Church
• Put cave and cave pics
• Tirishim plateau, rock pictures park
• Menua Canal

Hosap Castle is a large medieval castle located in the village of Güzelsu (previously Hosap). Most of the surviving structure was built in 1643 by Sari Süleyman Bey, chief of the Kurdish Mahmudi tribe. Hosap or Xosabê means "beautiful water" in Kurdish.

The former town of Hosap lay on the flat ground north of the castle rock and in the enclosed space on the opposite side of the castle from the road; the present village extends into this space. The town was defended at one corner by the castle and elsewhere by a wall, which originally started from the ends of the castle's two cliffs. Built of mud, and toothed with the remains of mud battlements, the wall of the city from early Ottoman period can still be seen in stretches.

On the north of the former town it now starts from a point beyond but the line of the cliff, near the Van road and extends along a natural ridge eastwards. From the castle's southerly cliff the wall crosses the low saddle to the north-east. The two walls meet at the summit of the next hill, in order to keep control of all the land commanding the town. Beyond this hill's summit stretches a seemingly empty expanse of low, spreading hills.