The economic and technological progresses have changed urban development pattern by increasing rural-to-urban migration, while meeting the needs of the growing population led to rapid growth of cities through sprawls. In this context, protection of limited natural resources and their transfer into future generations become increasingly essential, when sustainable urbanization approaches are required to prevent uncontrolled and rapid growth of cities. Thus, sustainable urbanization movements and

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... approaches such as Smart Growth, Green Urbanization, New Urbanism and Ecological Planning, which have been launched in various countries, have spread around the world. Reviewing certain principles of these movements on the urban growth and urban form, the article focuses on the common point of these approaches, i.e. the ecological planning, which includes also certain planning principles and implementation policies. Then, the article examines the concepts, principles and models used in ecological planning with their development in the historical process. The findings of this article, which cover the principles and models for planning the sustainable and ecological cities, will not only contribute to planning processes and policy makers for the development and implementation of eco-cities, but also to transform the existing urban areas toward ecological and sustainable environs in Turkey.