
Satellite image of the Bosporus, taken
from the International Space Station in April 2004.
The
Bosphorus or Bosporus ( ), also
known as the Istanbul Strait ( ), is a strait that forms part of the boundary between the
European part of Turkey
(Thrace) and its Asian part
(Anatolia
).
It is one
of the Turkish Straits, along with
the Dardanelles
. The world's narrowest strait used for
international navigation, it
connects the Black
Sea
with the Sea of Marmara
(which is connected by the Dardanelles
to the Aegean
Sea
, and thereby to the Mediterranean Sea
). It is approximately long, with a maximum
width of at the northern entrance, and a minimum width of between
Kandilli and Aşiyan; and between Anadoluhisarı and Rumelihisarı.
The depth varies from in midstream.
The shores of the strait are heavily
populated as the city of Istanbul
(with a
metropolitan area in excess of 11 million inhabitants) straddles
it.
Two
bridges cross the Bosporus.
The first, the
Bosphorus
Bridge
, is long and was completed in 1973.
The
second, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge
, is long, and was completed in 1988 about north of
the first bridge. Plans for a third road bridge, which will
allow transit traffic to by-pass the city traffic, have been
approved by the Ministry of Transportation. The bridge will be part
of the "Northern Marmara Motorway", which will be further
integrated with the existing Black Sea Coastal Highway. The
location will be somewhere north of the existing two bridges, but
the exact path is kept secret to prevent false rumour trading of
lands on the possible routes.
Another
crossing, Marmaray
, is a long undersea railway tunnel
currently under construction and is expected to be completed in
2012. Approximately of the tunnel will run under the strait,
at a depth of about .
Associations
The name comes from the
Greek word
Bosporos (
Βόσπορος).
Its
etymology is from
bous ( :
ox) and
poros ( : "means of passing a river,
ford, ferry") (the similar Ancient Greek word for "passage, strait"
is
porthmos ( )), thus meaning "oxen passage", which could
reflect the older history of the region. The Greeks analysed it as
"
ox-ford" or "shallow sea ox
passage" and associated it with the
myth of
Io's
travels after Zeus turned her into an
heifer
for her protection. It has also been thought to be a Thracian form
of
Phôsphoros (
Φωσφόρος),
"light-bearing", an epithet of the goddess
Hecate.
It is also said in myth that floating rocks known as the
Symplegades or Clashing Rocks once crushed any
ship that attempted passage of the Bosporus until the hero
Jason obtained passage, whereupon the rocks became
fixed, and Greek access to the Black Sea was opened.
Formation of the Bosporus
The exact cause for the formation of the Bosporus remains the
subject of vigorous debate among geologists.
Thousands of years
ago, the Black
Sea
became disconnected from the Aegean Sea
. One recent theory (published in 1997 by
William Ryan and Walter Pitman from Columbia University) contends that the
Bosporus was formed about 5600 BC when the rising waters of the
Mediterranean/Sea of
Marmara
breached through to the Black Sea, which at the
time (according to the theory) was a low-lying body of fresh
water.
Some have argued that the resulting massive flooding of the
inhabited and probably farmed northern shores of the Black Sea is
thought to be the historic basis for the
flood stories found in the
Epic of Gilgamesh and in the
Bible in
Book of
Genesis, Chapters 6-9. On the other hand, there is also
evidence for a flood of water going in the opposite direction, from
the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara around 7000 or 8000 BC.
Biblical reference
St.
Jerome's Vulgate
translates the Hebrew besepharad in Obadiah, 1-20 as
"Bosforus", but other translations give it as "Sepharad" (probably Sardis
, but later
identified with Spain).
Ancient Greece, Rome, the Byzantines and the Ottoman
Empire
As the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean,
the Bosporus has always been of great commercial and strategic
importance.
The Greek city-state of Athens
in the 5th
century BC, which was dependent on grain imports from Scythia, therefore maintained critical alliances
with cities which controlled the straits, such as the Megarian
colony Byzantium.
The
strategic significance of the strait was one of the factors in the
decision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to found there in 330 AD
his new capital, Constantinople
, which came to be known as the capital of the
Eastern Roman Empire. On
29 May 1453 it was
conquered
by the emerging
Ottoman Empire.
In fact,
as the Ottoman Turks closed in on Istanbul, they constructed a
fortification on each side of the strait, Anadoluhisarı
(1393) and Rumelihisarı
(1451).
Strategic importance
The
strategic importance of the Bosporus remains high, and control over
it has been an objective of a number of hostilities in modern
history, notably the Russo–Turkish War,
1877–1878, as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles
in 1915 in the course of World War I.
Several international treaties have governed vessels using the
waters. Following WW I, the 1920
Treaty of Sèvres demilitarized the
strait and made it an international territory under the control of
the
League of Nations. This was
amended under the 1923
Treaty of
Lausanne, which restored the straits to Turkish territory but
allowed all foreign warships and commercial shipping to traverse
the straits freely. Turkey eventually rejected the terms of that
treaty, and subsequently Turkey remilitarized the straits area. The
reversion to this old regime was formalized under the
Montreux
Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits of July
1936.
That convention, which is still in practical
force as of 2008, treats the straits as an international shipping
lane, but Turkey does retain the right to restrict the naval
traffic of non-Black Sea nations (such as Greece
, a
traditional enemy, or Algeria
).
During
World War II, through February
1945, when Turkey was neutral for most of the length of the
conflict, the Dardanelles were closed to the ships of the
belligerent nations. In the conferences during World War II, Soviet
leader
Joseph Stalin openly requested
the concession of Soviet military bases on the
Straits, even though Turkey was not involved in the
war.
This
incident, coupled with Stalin's demands for the restitution of the
Turkish provinces of Kars
, Artvin
and Ardahan
to the Soviet Union
(which were lost by Turkey with the Russo–Turkish
War of 1877–1878, but were regained with the Treaty of Kars in 1921) was one of the main
reasons why Turkey decided to give up its general principle of
neutrality in foreign affairs. Turkey did declare war
against Germany in February 1945, but did not engage in offensive
actions.
In more recent years, the Turkish Straits have become particularly
important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as
Novorossyisk, is exported by tankers to
western Europe and the U.S. via the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles
straits.
Sightseeing
A cheap
way to explore the Bosporus is offered by the public ferries that
traverse the Bosporus from Eminönü
on the historic peninsula of Istanbul to Anadolu
Kavağı near the Black Sea, zigzagging between the Rumelian and
Anatolian sides of the city.
It is also possible to experience the Bosphorus by taking a regular
ride in one of the public ferries that travel every 45 minutes
between the European and the Asian sides.
It is also possible
to travel by the privately owned ferries available between Üsküdar
and Beşiktaş
.
There are also tourist rides available in various places along the
coasts of the Bosphorus. The prices vary according to the type of
the ride, and some feature loud popular music for the duration of
the trip.
See also
Notes
- Entry: at Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, 1940,
A Greek-English Lexicon.
- Entry: at Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, 1940,
A Greek-English Lexicon.
- Entry: at Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, 1940,
A Greek-English Lexicon.
- Entry: at Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, 1940,
A Greek-English Lexicon,
- Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 733.
- Obadiah, 1-20.
- Foreign Policy Research Institute: The Turkish
Factor in the Geopolitics of the Post-Soviet Space (Igor
Torbakov)
- Robert Cutler: Turkish-Soviet Relations
- Answers.com: Russia's relations with
Turkey
- Today's Zaman: Against who and where are we going
to stand? (Ali Bulaç)
- Explore Bosphorus with IDO, on the website of
İDO.
External links