Foça Castle ( tr, Foça Kalesi), also known as Beşkapılar Castle ( tr, Beşkapılar Kalesi), is a coastal fortification in

İzmir Province İzmir Province ( tr, İzmir ili) is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey in western Anatolia, situated along the Aegean coast. Its capital is the city of İzmir, which is in itself composed of the province's central 11 distri ...

, western Turkey. The castle is located in

Foça Foça is a town and district in Turkey's İzmir Province, on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast. The town of Foça is situated at about northwest of İzmir's city center. The district also has a township with its own municipality named Yenifoça (lite ...

ilçe (district) of İzmir Province at . Its distance to

İzmir İzmir ( , ; ), also spelled Izmir, is a metropolitan city in the western extremity of Anatolia, capital of the province of the same name. It is the third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara and the second largest urban agglo ...

is about . The fortification wall around the ancient city of Phocaea was built in 590-580 BC. The walls underwent restoration during the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

era. The castle was a part of the

Republic of Genoa The Republic of Genoa ( lij, Repúbrica de Zêna ; it, Repubblica di Genova; la, Res Publica Ianuensis) was a medieval and early modern maritime republic from the 11th century to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast. During the Lat ...

in the 13th century, and it was rebuilt by the Genovese.İzmir Ministry of Culture page
/ref> In the 14th century, Ottoman prince

Şehzade Halil Şehzade Halil (probably 1346–1362) was an Ottoman prince. His father was Orhan, the second bey of the Ottoman beylik (later empire). His mother was Theodora Kantakouzene, the daughter of Byzantine emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and Irene Asan ...

was kidnapped and retained in the castle. The fortification was restored in 1538 by Ottomans after the city was annexed. The castle stretches over the peninsula.

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...

temple marks the northernmost end and the five gates collectively known as Beşkapılar (“Five Gates”) mark the southwestern end. Beşkapılar was used as a boatshed ( tr, Kayıkhane) during the Ottoman Empire. In 2020, Foça Castle was included in the list of World Heritage Sites in Turkey (Tentative list).

References

{{Castles in Turkey History of İzmir Province Foça District Castles in Turkey Coastal fortifications Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Turkey World Heritage Tentative List for Turkey Phocaea