Çanakkale Bosporus
The Dardanelles, or the Dardanelles Strait as it is historically known, is a strait and international waterway that separates the continents of Asia and Europe and connects the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara.
The Dardanelles, which became an international waterway with the Convention on the Straits signed with the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and became fully under the control of the Republic of Turkey with the Montreux Convention on the Straits signed in 1936, is called the Turkish Straits together with the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus Strait and is considered one of the natural borders separating the continents of Europe and Asia.
One of the narrowest straits used for international maritime transportation, the Dardanelles connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The strait is 61 kilometers (38 mi) long, 1.2 to 6 kilometers (0.75 to 3.73 mi) wide and an average depth of 55 meters (180 ft). The deepest point of the strait is 104 meters (341 ft) deep. Transportation between the two continents is provided by ferries and the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge.
Most of the northern shores of the strait along the Gallipoli Peninsula, a significant part of which is the Gallipoli Historical Site of the Çanakkale Wars, are sparsely inhabited, while the southern shores along the Biga Peninsula are more densely populated, with the provincial center of Çanakkale, with a population of 180,000, located at the narrowest part of the strait.
