The Lake Van Ferry ( tr, Van Gölü Feribotu) is a passenger

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

service operated by the

Turkish State Railways The State Railways of the Republic of Turkey ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları), abbreviated as TCDD, is a government-owned national railway company responsible with the ownership and maintenance of railway infrastructure in Turkey ...

. It runs in

Lake Van Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...

between

Van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...

and

Tatvan Tatvan ( ) is a city on the western shore of Lake Van. It is the chief city of Tatvan District within Bitlis Province in eastern Turkey, and has about 96,000 inhabitants. The current Mayor is Mehmet Emin Geylani ( AKP). The district is fully Kurdi ...

. Ferry service began operations in 1971, when a railway from Van to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

was built. The ferry carries mainly railcars across the lake along with passengers. Passengers of the weekly Trans-Asia Express used the ferry to bridge the gap between the two railways until the service was suspended in July 2015. As of November 2017, there are five operational ferries, two of which began service in 1971. Two new ferries, with greater capacity, have been ordered by the State Railways. One of the two are in service, while the second one is under construction in Tatvan. The crossing takes about 4 and a half hours with the four older ferries and 3 and a half hours with the two new ferries.

References

{{reflist Ferries of Turkey Lake Van Transport in Bitlis Province Transport in Van Province