Malatya is a large city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city has been a human settlement for thousands of years.

In Hittite, melid or milit means "honey", offering a possible etymology for the name, which was mentioned in the contemporary sources of the time under several variations.

Strabo says that the city was known "to the ancients" as Melitene, a name adopted by the Romans following Roman expansion into the east. According to Strabo, the inhabitants of Melitene shared with the nearby Cappadocians and Cataonians the same language and culture.

The site of ancient Melitene lies a few kilometres from the modern city in what is now the village of Arslantepe and near the district center of Battalgazi (Byzantine to Ottoman Empire). Present-day Battalgazi was the location of the city of Malatya until the 19th century, when a gradual move of the city to the present third location began. Battalgazi's official name was Eskimalatya (Old Malatya); until recently, it was a name used locally. In Turkey the city is renowned for its apricots, as up to 80% of the Turkish apricot production is provided by Malatya, giving Malatya the name kayisi diyari ("apricot realm").