The name Dörtyol means "crossroads" (literally "four roads") in Turkish, and indeed the town sits on a crossing of highways, especially the O-53 from Anatolia south into Hatay and on to Syria. The road is channelled along the narrow coastal strip with the Nur Mountains (the ancient Amanos) behind. Dörtyol is at the edge of the Çukurova Plain and being near the coast, is humid and the countryside is fairly green and fertile. Therefore as well as oil-handling, the economic activities of the district include forestry, cotton, and the cultivation of citrus fruits, especially a local variety of tangerine.
This crossroads has seen the passage of numerous armies and some of the biggest military campaigns in history, including the battle between Alexander the Great and Darius in 333 BC. In 1895 the Armenians of Chorkmarzban resisted to the Hamidian Massacres. In 1909 during the Adana Massacre the Armenians of Dörtyol or Chorkmarzban resisted the massacres again. From 1919-1921 the Armenians resisted the Armenian Genocide, this was the third and last resistance movement of the Armenians of Chorkmarzban. After the French and Turks agreed on the Syrian-Turkish border, Dörtyol fell on the Turkish side, and the surviving Armenians fled to Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Amman. More recently Dörtyol is remembered in Turkey as the scene of the first fighting in the Turkish War of Independence. The fighting with the occupying forces was ignited in Karakese which is located on the skirt of the Nur mountains village. In 1918 Dörtyol was occupied by French troops. Turks in the area retreated to the hills and began their resistance under the leadership of Kara Hasan Pasha. Dörtyol was thus not part of the Republic of Hatay but was a Turkish district added to Hatay when the province was brought into the Turkish republic in 1939.