Dereköy () is a village of

Kırklareli Province Kırklareli Province ( tr, ) is a Provinces of Turkey, province in northwestern Turkey on the west coast of the Black Sea. The province neighbours Bulgaria to the north along a long border. It borders the province of Edirne to the west and the ...

in western Turkey and one of the three land border crossing points between Bulgaria and Turkey.

Geography

The village is located in

Strandzha Strandzha ( bg, Странджа, also transliterated as ''Strandja'', ; tr, Istranca , or ) is a mountain massif in southeastern Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey. It is in the southeastern part of the Balkans between the plains of T ...

mountains, 20 km north of the centre of Kırklareli, near the border with Bulgaria.

History

In the 19th century Dereköy was a Bulgarian village in the kaza of Kırklareli which was in turn in the Vilayet of Edirne. In 1873, the village consisted of 360 households with 1684 Bulgarians. After the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878, first families from Dereköy migrated to Razgrad and Tutrakan to the newly sovereign Bulgaria. According to statistics provided by Ljubomir Miletitsch, Dereköy had about 150 households and 634 inhabitants in 1900, all of whom were Christian Bulgarians. After the outbreak of the Balkan War in 1912, 16 volunteers from Dereköy fought in Macedonia-Edirne-volunteer corps of the Bulgarian army. After the outbreak of the Second Balkan War, when the Turkish army recaptured eastern Thrace, the whole Bulgarian population of Dereköy escaped to Bulgaria.

The Border

The border crossing point lies about 11 km north west of the village centre. The Bulgarian counterpart is Malko Tarnovo. It was opened in 1970. It occupies a land size of 17.811 m2. Modernization of the facilities is still ongoing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Derekoy, Kirklareli Villages in Kırklareli Province Bulgaria–Turkey border crossings