The 2020 Mw 6.8 Elazig earthquake was the largest along the Eastern Anatolian Fault (EAF) in over a century, providing valuable insights into its rupture behavior. We use satellite geodesy and seismology to detail the mainshock rupture, postseismic deformation and aftershocks. The mainshock propagated mostly westwards at 2 km/s from a nucleation point on an abrupt 10° fault bend. Only one end of the rupture corresponds to an established EAF segment boundary, and the earthquake may have propagated into the slip zone of the 1874 M 7.1 Golcuk Golu earthquake. It exhibits a pronounced (80%) shallow slip deficit, only a small proportion of which is recovered by early aseismic afterslip. The slow rupture velocity, shallow slip deficit and low afterslip are characteristic of earthquakes hosted by faults of low-to-intermediate structural maturity, indicating that faults continue to evolve in important ways even as they accrue cumulative off sets of tens of kilometers