Durağan is a town and district of
Sinop Province
Sinop Province ( tr, Sinop ili ; el, Σινώπη, ''Sinopi'') is a province of Turkey, along the Black Sea. It is located between 41 and 42 degrees North latitude and between 34 and 35 degrees East longitude. The surface area is 5,862&nbs ...
in the
Black Sea region
The Black Sea Region ( tr, Karadeniz Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The largest city in the region is Samsun. Other big cities are Trabzon, Ordu, Tokat, Giresun, Rize, Amasya and Sinop.
It is bordered by the Marmara Region ...
of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
.
The town is at the location where
Kızıl River joins its tributary the
Gök just before crossing the last mountain range northwards to the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Ro ...
.
Rice farming in the fertile river valley has been the engine of economical activity of the town. The construction of two dams (
Boyabat Dam (2012),
Altınkaya Dam (1988)) have given Durağan two lakes instead of rice fields.
The name of the town is an altered version of the name of a building from 13th century for overnight stay of caravans, Durak Han, literally "station house" in Turkish. Another possible explanation is that the name originates from "Dura Han" where Dura is the name of a ravine nearby (Dura Deresi) down from a plateau dominating the two river valleys.
Gökırmak valley runs east west and constitutes a portion of the
Silk road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and rel ...
, together with a series of similar river valleys running east–west around 100 km inland from Black Sea coast.
Durağan has a past reaching into the antiquity being the nearest town to possibly world's oldest underwater tunnel, terelek kaya tuneli, a few kilometers downstream on the Kızıl River, now the upper part of a dam lake. Carved rock face graves,
[http://terelek.blogcu.com/terelek-kral-kaya-mezarlari-duragan-sinop/319540 TERELEK KRAL KAYA MEZARLARI] and a mine nearby might be from similar periods in antiquity. The chemicals from the mine might have been shipped to
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
for use in very early copper production.
Durağan has also a cave, Buzluk Mağarası, that naturally produces ice during summer time, near the villages of
Bayatsekisi and
Sarnıkalıncası, about 13 km from town.
References
External links
District governor's official website
*
Populated places in Sinop Province
Districts of Sinop Province
{{Sinop-geo-stub