Seas and coasts of Turkey
Sea & Coast: 79 places from 26 provinces of Turkey. Each has a model-like miniature, a short story and a Numa Made ring on the Isometric Turkey map.
Tahtalı & Bey Mountains
In the ancient world, Olympos was a name given to many mountains, much as so many cities today have a district called “Tepebaşı”, or “Hilltop”. In Anatolia alone there were at least two…
See on the map →Princes’ Islands
“Everything begins with loving a human being.” Sait Faik Abasıyanık wrote this sentence in his story ‘A Dot on the Map’. And that dot on the map is Burgazada, lying in the middle of the…
See on the map →Yoros Castle & Anadolu Kavağı
What do you suppose was the first thing ancient sailors did as they prepared to sail out of the Bosphorus into the Black Sea? Check the sails? Count the provisions? If the ancient sources…
See on the map →Rumeli Feneri & Garipçe
In Greek mythology, two rocks called the Symplegades stood at the gateway to the Black Sea; if a ship tried to pass between them, they would clash together and smash it to pieces. When…
See on the map →Kilyos
When the ancient Greeks first reached the Black Sea, they named it Pontos Axeinos, “the inhospitable sea”. With its misty air, sudden storms and wild waves, this sea can hardly have shown a…
See on the map →Şile
How does the name of a town become a fabric? Few come to Şile without seeing those fine, crinkled, light cotton cloths hanging in its market. Şile bezi, Şile cloth… Known for keeping you…
See on the map →Ağva
When a village is built between two streams, which one does it listen to: the babble of one, or the whisper of the other? Visitors to Ağva can’t easily find the answer, because here two…
See on the map →Riva
Have you ever wondered why a stream winds so much on its way to the sea? After all, the shortest path is a straight line… Yet the Riva Stream, leaving the forests north of Istanbul, twists…
See on the map →Tirilye & Mudanya
How many signatures does it take to end a war? Had we asked the delegations gathered in a room of a seaside mansion in Mudanya in the autumn of 1922, they would probably all have tried to…
See on the map →Osmangazi Bridge & the Gulf
“We will either find a way, or make one.” These words, attributed to Hannibal of Carthage, capture the stubbornness of a commander who resolved to cross the Alps with his elephants. But did…
See on the map →Kefken & Kerpe
Around 400 BC, ten thousand Greek mercenaries who had escaped alive from the depths of the Persian lands came to a harbor as they made their way west along the Black Sea coast. Xenophon…
See on the map →Karasu Coast
What does a river find at the end of its journey? Ask the Sakarya, and its answer would begin with the story of a road more than eight hundred kilometers long… Winding its way down from the…
See on the map →Çınarcık & Erikli Plateau
How long does it take to climb from the seashore to a mountain plateau? In Çınarcık the answer is measured not in minutes, but in views… Below, the still blue of the Marmara and houses…
See on the map →Armutlu
What does one seek at the tip of a peninsula? Some the clearest cove in the sea, some the cool mountain air, and some the healing waters welling up from deep in the earth… Armutlu is one of…
See on the map →Ayvalık & Cunda
Can a town’s name speak of the same fruit in two languages? Ayvalık’s Greek name was Kydonies, and that name too, just like the Turkish one, comes from the quince tree, the ayva… Two…
See on the map →Devil’s Table & Sarımsaklı
Imagine even the devil choosing a view before setting his table… And imagine that the spot he chose is a hill overlooking one of the most beautiful sunsets in the Aegean! There are many…
See on the map →Kapıdağ Peninsula & Erdek
When the Argonauts set out for the Black Sea in search of the Golden Fleece, their route led them to a mountainous peninsula in the middle of the Marmara. There they were welcomed by a…
See on the map →Marmara Island
Can an island give its name to the sea before it? Few islands have won this honor; but Marmara Island has for centuries lent its name to an entire sea… For Marmara comes from the ancient…
See on the map →Avşa Island
Have you ever wondered how many vineyards a small island can hold? Reach Avşa at the end of summer, wander among the vines covering its slopes, and you’ll see that the answer is “far more…
See on the map →Akçay & Gulf of Edremit
“Even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees, / and not for your children, either…” says Nâzım Hikmet in his poem ‘On Living’. So what kind of faith is it to plant a tree knowing…
See on the map →Dardanelles & Kilitbahir
Can you put a lock on a sea? Had we asked Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, he would probably have smiled and pointed to the narrowest point of the Dardanelles… The fortresses he built in 1462…
See on the map →Bozcaada
“In sight lies Tenedos, an island known far and wide by fame…” Virgil tells us in his epic, the ‘Aeneid’. The Achaeans, who had besieged Troy for ten years, finally devised a trick: leaving…
See on the map →Gökçeada
Where in Turkey does the sun set last? The answer is a mountainous island rising in the middle of the Aegean, at the mouth of the Dardanelles: Gökçeada… The country’s westernmost point lies…
See on the map →1915 Çanakkale Bridge
Can a king be angry at the sea? According to Herodotus, yes… In 480 BC, the Persian King Xerxes had a bridge of ships built across the Dardanelles to carry his army into Greece. But when a…
See on the map →Enez & Lake Gala
According to Greek mythology, after losing his beloved Eurydice a second time, the legendary bard Orpheus is so grief-stricken that he no longer wishes to sing for anyone. The enraged…
See on the map →Erikli & Gulf of Saros
The ancient Greeks called this gulf Melas Kolpos, “the Black Gulf”. So why would a gulf with the clearest waters in Thrace be called “black”? Some say the name comes from the river Melas…
See on the map →Kıyıköy
In his ‘Anabasis’, describing the journey of the Ten Thousand along the coast of Thrace on their way back from Persian lands, Xenophon mentions a place called Salmydessus. Here the sea is…
See on the map →İğneada & Floodplain Forests
Can a forest live in water? Before coming to İğneada, most of us would answer “no”. Yet here, for part of the year, the trees stand with their roots drowned in water, then step back onto…
See on the map →Şarköy & Mürefte
When Homer speaks of the sea, he often calls it the “wine-dark sea”. But why should the sea be the color of wine? The question has intrigued readers for centuries. For those who want to…
See on the map →Çeşme & Alaçatı
Can we see the wind? Of course not; but in Alaçatı we see what it sways, what it turns, whom it calls to the sea. On this shore at the tip of the peninsula, facing the island of Chios, the…
See on the map →Foça
Did you know that Marseille is the daughter of a small town in Izmir? It may not sound very convincing, but history records it plainly: this great French port city was founded around 600 BC…
See on the map →Karaburun Peninsula
In Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, old Nestor, recounting the voyage home from Troy, recalls a moment of decision: should the ships sail by way of the open sea off Chios, or past “windy Mimas”? That…
See on the map →Sığacık & Teos
Do you know Anacreon, who sang in his poems of wine, love and the sweet melancholy of growing old? One of the best-loved lyric poets of the ancient world, Anacreon was born right here, in…
See on the map →Urla & Karantina Island
“In everything there is a portion of everything,” says Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. The philosopher who held that the universe is a mixture, that even the smallest part bears the trace of the…
See on the map →Kuşadası & Güvercinada
Who gives a city its name? A king, a god, or the birds that land on its shore and take off again? Kuşadası’s answer, as its name suggests, is rather modest… Legend has it that the town took…
See on the map →Dilek Peninsula
Two great battles on the same day, on the two shores of the sea… According to the historians of antiquity, on a summer’s day in 479 BC the Greeks defeated the Persians both at Plataea in…
See on the map →Bodrum Castle
Herodotus, regarded as the father of history, begins his great work by saying that he writes so that what people have done may not be forgotten with time. So where was the man who wrote…
See on the map →Gümüşlük & Yalıkavak
“Men of Myndos, bar your gates, lest your city run away!” This barbed remark by the Cynic philosopher Diogenes is said to have been made when he saw the enormous gates of a tiny city…
See on the map →Marmaris
Can you imagine a town’s name being born of a sultan’s anger? That is exactly the most famous story told about Marmaris… Legend has it that in 1522, Suleiman the Magnificent, returning from…
See on the map →Datça
“Do not fence off the isthmus, nor dig it through; for Zeus would have made it an island, had he wished.” According to Herodotus, these words were the answer the oracle of Delphi gave the…
See on the map →Ölüdeniz & Babadağ
Why would a sea be called “dead”? Because it has no waves, because it makes no sound, or because it lies motionless even when a storm breaks? The answer of Ölüdeniz, the “dead sea”, is all…
See on the map →Fethiye
Who interprets dreams? In antiquity, the answer to this question was often the name of a single city: Telmessos. The seers of this coast we now call Fethiye were famed for their skill in…
See on the map →Dalyan & Kaunos
“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity,” says Homer in the ‘Iliad’. The wind scatters the leaves to the ground, and when spring comes the forest puts forth new ones; so too…
See on the map →Akyaka & Gökova
What happens when a poet decides to build a house? Akyaka’s answer reveals itself as you walk its streets… Nail Çakırhan, who wrote poetry in his youth and never trained as an architect…
See on the map →Göcek & 12 Islands
Imagine a painter drawing a fish on a rock; not on a canvas, not on paper, but directly on a rock at the edge of the sea… In 1974, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu did exactly that at Taşyaka, one of…
See on the map →Sedir Island
What does a lover bring the one they love? Flowers, jewels, perhaps a poem… According to the story of Sedir Island, the answer is far more ambitious: a beach. Legend has it that when Mark…
See on the map →Bozburun & Selimiye
Have you ever thought about where a boat is born? Seeing those elegant gulets gliding over the sea, most of us wonder where they are going; yet the real story is where they come from… The…
See on the map →Düden Waterfall & Lara
“Once again you overflow, my wild heart, / Will you rush and roar like the waters?” asks Yunus Emre. But can a river, too, overflow like a heart, rush and roar, and then suddenly vanish?…
See on the map →Kaş & Meis
Gabriele Salvatores’ Oscar-winning film ‘Mediterraneo’ ends with a dedication: “To all those who are running away.” In the film, a handful of Italian soldiers land on a small Greek island…
See on the map →Kekova & Simena
On the shore of Kaleköy there is a Lycian sarcophagus whose feet are washed by the waves every day. Half in the sea, half on land; neither wholly in this world nor in the next… So how does…
See on the map →Olympos & Çıralı
In the Iliad, Homer describes the Chimaera as a creature born not of men but of gods: a lion in front, a serpent behind, a goat in between, breathing out a terrible fire… If such a monster…
See on the map →Kemer & Phaselis
What might a city’s land be worth? Gold, silver, a king’s seal… Legend has it that Phaselis went for a few salted fish! The story goes that Lakios, leader of the colonists from Rhodes…
See on the map →Alanya Castle
Do you need a war to take a castle, or a wedding? The story goes that when the Seljuk Sultan Alâeddin Keykubad arrived before this giant rock jutting into the sea in 1221, Kir Vart, lord of…
See on the map →Kalkan & Kaputaş
Imagine rounding a bend on the coast road when, suddenly, far below, a turquoise beach appears between two walls of rock… Cars slow down, passengers fall silent, everyone looks at the same…
See on the map →Patara
In ‘The Spirit of the Laws’, Montesquieu writes: “Were I to give a model of an excellent confederate republic, I should pitch upon that of Lycia.” Years later, as the American Constitution…
See on the map →Kızkalesi & Cennet-Cehennem
Once upon a time, a king who ruled in Korykos had an only daughter… Legend has it that the soothsayers foretold she would one day die of a snakebite. To save his daughter from this fate…
See on the map →Silifke & Göksu Delta
Which of us hasn’t heard the folk song that begins “Oh, the yogurt of Silifke…”? While the song goes on praising Silifke’s yogurt and its cream, the town’s history also has pages that are…
See on the map →Anamur & Anemurium
Ask where the southernmost tip of Anatolia is, and many of us would pause over the map for a moment… The answer is Cape Anamur. On clear days, they say, the mountains of Cyprus appear on…
See on the map →Gilindire Cave & Aydıncık
If a cave that had never seen daylight for thousands of years, whose existence no one even suspected, one day opened its door to us, what would we find? Stones growing patiently in the…
See on the map →Yumurtalık
In the book recounting his journey to Asia, Marco Polo speaks of a port he calls “Laias”: a bustling harbor where spices, silk and all the precious goods of the East were gathered from…
See on the map →Samandağ & Mount Musa
In the Quran’s Surah al-Kahf, Moses tells his young traveling companion, “I will not give up until I reach the junction of the two seas.” And at the end of that journey he meets the wise…
See on the map →İskenderun & Amanos
Is there any other commander who gave his name to so many cities? On campaigns that stretched from Egypt to India, Alexander the Great founded city after city bearing his name; he didn’t…
See on the map →Arsuz
Some places enter history with a roar, others in silence… So how is a shore’s calm preserved for centuries? Perhaps the answer lies in Arsuz, where the mountains meet the sea and the roads…
See on the map →Akçakoca
When late August comes to the Black Sea, the slopes stir into a bustle. Early in the morning people head out to the orchards, branches are shaken, and the green-husked clusters that fall to…
See on the map →Karadeniz Ereğli
In his ‘Anabasis’, telling of the journey of ten thousand Greek soldiers along the Black Sea coast as they tried to get home, Xenophon mentions a cape near Herakleia — the cape where, the…
See on the map →Filyos
What happens where a river meets the sea? Fresh water mingles with salt, the current slows, the soil it carries is left on the shore, and the river quietly completes the long journey that…
See on the map →Amasra
“Lala, could this be the eye of the world?” Legend has it that when Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror took Amasra in 1460 and saw from the castle ramparts its two bays, its islands and its sheer…
See on the map →Kurucaşile & Kapısuyu
How is a boat born? First a tree is chosen; a dry, sound tree that has waited patiently… Then the keel is laid on the slipway, the ribs are set in place one by one, and months of labor move…
See on the map →İnebolu
“They who are as many / as ants on the earth, / fish in the water, / birds in the air…” says Nâzım Hikmet in his epic ‘Kuvâyi Milliye’. But where had the poet who would write this epic…
See on the map →Cide & Gideros Bay
We all know Hababam Sınıfı, ‘The Chaos Class’; but do you know where the pen that wrote all that laughter was born? Rıfat Ilgaz came into the world in 1911 on this stretch of the Black Sea…
See on the map →Sinop Castle
Legend has it that when Alexander the Great stood before a philosopher sunning himself and offered to grant him whatever he wished, the answer he got was: “Stand out of my sun!” Diogenes…
See on the map →İnceburun
“Outside, the wild waves / Come and lick the walls; / These sounds will keep you company, / Never mind, my heart, never mind…” Sabahattin Ali wrote these lines in Sinop, between the stone…
See on the map →Hamsilos Bay
Say “fjord” and Norway comes to mind at once: deep, narrow, steep-sided inlets carved by glaciers… So what would you think if you heard there was a “fjord” on the Black Sea coast too, right…
See on the map →Kızılırmak Delta
Birds carry no maps and use no compass; so how do they find the same reed bed, the same lake, every year from thousands of kilometers away? Perhaps some places look so striking from the sky…
See on the map →Cape Jason
“As you set out for Ithaka / hope the voyage is a long one…” says Cavafy. The poet had Odysseus in mind, of course; yet reading these lines, another sailor and another long voyage come to…
See on the map →Ünye
Can a town take its name from a wine cup? Ünye’s old name is Oinoe, and tradition has it that the name is related to “oinos,” the Ancient Greek word for wine. Today on Ünye’s slopes you see…
See on the map →Giresun Castle & Island
Would you believe it if someone told you a fruit took its name from a city? Giresun’s old name is Kerasous, and legend has it that the word for cherry in many languages was born here. The…
See on the map →Tirebolu
Imagine a stream born in the mountains of Gümüşhane; it threads through narrow gorges, flows past the orchards of Torul and the narrow valley of Doğankent, waters villages, towns and…
See on the map →Hopa
To say that it rains in Hopa is to say too little; it might be truer to say that Hopa is the rain itself… An exaggeration, of course. But on this coast, one of the wettest places in Turkey…
See on the map →
Provinces with this kind of place
- Adana1 place
- Antalya9 places
- Artvin1 place
- Aydın2 places
- Balıkesir6 places
- Bartın2 places
- Bursa1 place
- Çanakkale4 places
- Düzce1 place
- Edirne2 places
- Giresun2 places
- Hatay3 places
- Istanbul7 places
- Izmir5 places
- Kastamonu2 places
- Kırklareli2 places
- Kocaeli2 places
- Mersin4 places
- Muğla11 places
- Ordu2 places
- Sakarya1 place
- Samsun1 place
- Sinop3 places
- Tekirdağ1 place
- Yalova2 places
- Zonguldak2 places