Between January and June 2026, 19,277 ships passed through the Bosporus, according to Turkey's transport ministry. That is 107 a day, slightly fewer than in the same period of 2025 (19,381) and well below 2024 (20,780). Yet the ships carried more: their combined gross tonnage…
On 13 October 2026 Turkey's transport ministry said it wanted to put Canal Istanbul out to tender and start building "as soon as possible". It gave…
Where the Golden Horn meets the Bosporus, on the shore below the Galata Tower, Istanbul has handed 1.2 kilometres of its waterfront to a private…
Ships entering the Bosporus from the Sea of Marmara pass under a skyline that has hardly changed in five centuries: Topkapı Palace on the point, and…
Two railway stations face each other across the southern mouth of the Bosporus. On the European side, under the walls of Topkapı, is Sirkeci, the old…
On 14 October 2026 Ekrem İmamoğlu stood up in a courtroom inside the Silivri prison complex, west of Istanbul, and began a four-day defence. He had…
In September 2022 a video went round Turkish social media showing a ferry passing the Maiden's Tower, Kız Kulesi, on its rock off Üsküdar. Something…
Every warship that wants to pass the Bosporus is governed by a treaty signed in a Swiss lakeside town in July 1936, before radar, before aircraft…
The Bosporus is at its narrowest, about 700 metres, between Aşiyan on the European shore and Kandilli on the Asian one. Two Ottoman fortresses face…
On 2 March 2026 the Russian minesweeper Valentin Pikul sank at its berth in Novorossiysk, according to Ukraine's defence ministry. It wasn't a famous…
