Kapıkule is the name of the Turkish border crossing point in
Edirne Province
Edirne Province () is a Turkish province located in East Thrace. Part of European Turkey, it is one of only three provinces located entirely within continental Europe. Its area is 6,145 km2, and its population is 414,714 (2022). Edirne Province ...
on the border 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 ...
and
Bulgaria
Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...
. Its counterpart on the Bulgarian side is
Kapitan Andreevo
Kapitan Andreevo ( ) is a village near the Bulgaria—Turkey—Greece tripoint in Svilengrad municipality, Haskovo Province, southern Bulgaria. As of 2005 it has 948 inhabitants and the mayor is Dimitar Shiderov. Due to the proximity with Turkey, ...
. Together, they form the busiest land
border crossing point
A border checkpoint is a location on an international border where travelers or goods Border control, are inspected and allowed (or denied) passage through. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-control ...
in
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
European route E80
European route E80, also known as the Trans-European Motorway or TEM, is an A-Class West-East European route, extending from Lisbon, Portugal to Gürbulak, Turkey, on the border with Iran. The road connects 10 countries and has a length of ...
, is also an important gateway for
cargo transport
Freight transport, also referred to as freight forwarding, is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been exte ...
to the countries east of Turkey. The
Asian Highway Network
The Asian Highway Network (AH), also known as the Great Asian Highway, is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to improve their connectivity via hig ...
route
AH1
Asian Highway 1 (AH1) is the longest east-west route of the Asian Highway Network, running from Tokyo, Japan via the Korean Peninsula (South Korea and North Korea), China (Mainland China and Hong Kong), Mainland Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Camb ...
terminates at the border. Other land border checkpoints in western Turkey are the neighboring Hamzabeyli (on the D.535) and Dereköy (on the D.555) to Bulgaria and
Ä°psala
Ä°psala (; ) is a town in Edirne Province in northwestern Turkey. It is the seat of Ä°psala District.D.110, E84) to
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
. The
Kapıkule railway station
Kapıkule is the name of the Turkish border crossing point in Edirne Province on the border of Turkey and Bulgaria. Its counterpart on the Bulgarian side is Kapitan Andreevo. Together, they form the busiest land border checkpoint, border crossing ...
, built in 1971, is located to the north of the town and handles more traffic than any other railway border crossing in Turkey.
In the dawn of the
Revolutions of 1989
The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Communist state, Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts ...
, the Kapıkule border crossing saw a mass exodus of
Turks
Turk or Turks may refer to:
Communities and ethnic groups
* Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
* Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey
* Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...
fleeing the forced assimilation laws of the mid to late 1980s in the
People's Republic of Bulgaria
The People's Republic of Bulgaria (PRB; , NRB; ) was the official name of Bulgaria when it was a socialist republic from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP; ) together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agraria ...
into Turkey.
Border checkpoint facilities
Around 400,000 vehicles and 4,000,000 people cross annually the border in Kapıkule that makes 35% of all the vehicle and 42% of all the passenger traffic passing through the land borders of Turkey. To meet the demand resulting from growing international crossings, the
Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey
The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey () is a confederation of all local chambers of commerce, industry and maritime as well as commodity exchanges in Turkey.
Overview
The union was founded on March 8, 1950, as an umbrella o ...
(TOBB) signed an agreement with the government in August 2007 to completely overhaul the facilities on Build-Operate-Transfer basis at a cost of 132 million TRL (US$100 million in 2007) in exchange for twenty-year operation.
The checkpoint reopened in the beginning of 2009 with thirteen passenger car and five truck gates for inbound, and seven passenger car and six truck gates for outbound traffic.
High tech
High technology (high tech or high-tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the state of the art, cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the ...
security equipment like
smart-card
A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart cards include a ...
controlled access
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...
,
closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...
and
X-ray
An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...
truck cargo check systems are installed at the border area. Commercial services are provided by
fast-food restaurant
A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast food, fast-food cuisine and has minimal Foodservice#Table service, table service. The food served ...
s,
duty-free shop
A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will ...
s,
outlet store
An outlet store, factory outlet or factory store is a brick and mortar or online shopping, online store where manufacturers sell their merchandise directly to the public. Products at outlet stores are usually sold at reduced prices compared to re ...
s,
supermarket
A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...
s and banks. The group of 24 buildings, which house various service facilities, cover on the wide checkpoint area.
Incidents
On 24 May 2023, 104 followers of the
Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light
The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (), also known simply as the Ahmadi Religion or AROPL, is a messianic new religious movement derived from the Twelver branch of Shia Islam. It is considered to be one of the emerging apocalyptic or "doomsd ...
seeking asylum in Bulgaria were detained at Kapıkule and violently harassed by Turkish authorities.