Portal:Turkey

Çanakkale bridge in December 2024

The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (Turkish: 1915 Çanakkale Köprüsü) is a road suspension bridge in the province of Çanakkale in northwestern Turkey. Situated just south of the coastal towns of Lapseki and Gelibolu, the bridge spans the Dardanelles, about 10 km (6.2 mi) south of the Sea of Marmara. The bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the world—with a main span of 2,023 m (2.023 km; 1.257 mi), the bridge surpasses the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge (1998) in Japan by 32 m (105 ft).

The bridge was officially opened by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 18 March 2022 after roughly five years of construction. It is the centrepiece of the planned 321-kilometre-long (199 mi) US$2.8 billion O-6 motorway, which will connect the O-3 and O-7 motorways in East Thrace to the O-5 motorway in Anatolia. The year "1915" in the official Turkish name honours an important Ottoman victory in the Gallipoli campaign comprising a naval engagement followed by a land invasion on the Gallipoli peninsula by the forces of Australia, New Zealand (The ANZACS), France and Great Britain from 25 April 1915 which were largely evacuated by December of that year. (Full article...)

• ... that Denis Legerský was allowed to play for the Turkish national ice hockey team in a friendly match in 2014, even though he is a Slovak citizen? (April 11, 2014)
• ... that the third officer of the MV Horizon-1, a cargo ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates, is a 24-year old Turkish woman? (July 27, 2009) Wikipedia:Recent additions 246
• ... that the 1993 Bayburt Üzengili avalanche in north-eastern Turkey killed 59 people and 650 livestock, and caused the relocation of the village to a safe zone? (October 20, 2010)
• ... that the broken top of the Aviation Martyrs' Monument in Istanbul is to symbolize the incomplete status of the flight missions? (September 21, 2010)
• ... that Karaköy, part of ancient Galata, and an important commercial and transport center at the Golden Horn, was the birthplace of André Chénier, a French poet beheaded during the French Revolution? (March 16, 2007) Wikipedia:Recent additions 127
• ... that Yavuz Yapıcıoğlu, nicknamed the "Screwdriver Killer", is the serial killer with the highest known victim count in Turkey? (March 22, 2014)
• ... that the world's longest tunnel system is the two parallel tunnels at the Atatürk Dam of Şanlıurfa in southeastern Turkey? (February 14, 2008)

Statue of Piri Reis

Muhiddin Piri (c. 1470 – 1553), better known as Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis), was an Ottoman cartographer, admiral, navigator, corsair, and geographer. He is primarily known today for his cartographic works, including his 1513 world map and the Kitab-ı Bahriye (Book of the Sea), a book with detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.

He was born in Gallipoli—a major Ottoman naval base—and sailed from an early age with his uncle Kemal Reis. They fought as corsairs in the Western Mediterranean until they were brought into the Ottoman Navy. Piri Reis fought alongside Kemal Reis in the Ottoman–Venetian wars. When his uncle died in 1511, Piri Reis returned to Gallipoli to begin his cartographic works. He created his first world map and likely began drafting the charts and notes that would form the basis of the Kitab-ı Bahriye. By 1516, he returned to the navy and took part in the Ottoman conquest of Egypt. After their victory, he presented the world map to Sultan Selim I. When Suleiman the Magnificent became sultan, Piri Reis completed the first version of the Kitab-ı Bahriye, which he dedicated and gifted to the sultan by 1521. Several years later, he created a more elaborate version at the urging of Grand Vizier Pargalı Ibrahim Pasha. His final surviving work is a 1528 world map, of which only the northwest corner remains (showing Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, Florida, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Central America). (Full article...)