Durağan is a town in
Sinop Province
Sinop Province (; , ''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. Its area is 5,717 km2, equivalent to 0.73% of Turkey's tot ...
in the
Black Sea region of
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
. It is the seat of
Durağan District.
[İlçe Belediyesi]
Turkey Civil Administration Departments Inventory. Retrieved 22 May 2023. Its population is 7,494 (2022).
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 sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea 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 bound ...
.
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
Altınkaya Dam is a Embankment dam#Rock-fill embankment dams, rock-fill dam for irrigation and hydro power, on the River Kızılırmak (river), Kızılırmak, 23 km south of Bafra and 35 km west of Samsun in northern Turkey. It feeds L ...
(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 Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...
, 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 (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
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
*
Populated places in Sinop Province
Durağan District
District municipalities in Turkey
{{Sinop-geo-stub