Background/aim: This study assessed the trend changes in the histological types of esophageal cancer in a 25-year period in eastern Turkey. Materials and methods: We searched all cases of esophageal cancer from 1990 to 2015 according to their histological diagnosis and sex, grouping the patients in 5-year time periods to evaluate time trends. Results: We identified 1462 cases of esophageal cancer. In terms of patient make-up, 742 were male and 720 were female. In general, 75.86% of the patients had squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 19.56% of the patients had adenocarcinoma (ADC), and the remaining 4.58% patients were found to have other histopathologic disorders. While the SCC to ADC ratio was 1.76 between 1990 and 1994, this rate increased to 8.73 between 2010 and 2014; during these periods, the male to female ratio decreased from 1.43 to 0.86. Between these two periods, statistically significant changes were observed of SCC and the number of female patients (P < 0.001, P = 0.008, respectively). Conclusion: While the incidence of esophagus ADC and the number of male patients increased recently in Western countries, the number of female patients and SCC cases increased in our region in the last 25 years.