Turkey – Derince – Via Eurasia

Derince

Summary

Derince is part of Kocaeli province and 8km west of Izmit on the Gulf of Izmit. It has a short coastline of only about 5km, but the hinterland extends 30 km to the north and includes forests on hills rising to about 450m, and farmland surrounding a large dam called Tahtalı, which supplies water. The Via Eurasia runs for 36km through the interior of the province. The route is not waymarked but you can follow it using the Via Eurasia smart-phone app.

Detailed Description

Derince has a population of about 200,000, many of whom work in the large companies that have factories or structures along the coast. It is divided into 17 districts under headmen.

Derince’s communications and heavy industry are important contributors to the Turkish economy. The road from Istanbul continuously carries heavy traffic towards the east, as it has for over 2000 years. In addition, the port takes some of the load from the Bosphorus, the narrow and potentially dangerous passage to the Black Sea.

Companies which operate from Derince include DerincePort, Petrol Ofisi and Shell oil companies, Türkkablo, Koruma Tarım, Uzer Makine, Körfez Kimya, Varilsan, Tavas factories.

History

Derince was a settlement area mentioned as “Çınar Çayır” in the Ottoman period; in the period of I. Selim, it was registered as Çınarlı Village. The historical water source called Çenesuyu played an important part in Derince’s history. In the 1860’s, Çenesuyu water, with a delicious taste and healing properties became the subject of poems. The source and bottling plant is now very close to the coastal motorway, and is owned by the mıunicipality. Derince’s name has an interesting story: in 1890, the government was searching for a suitable place with deep water where it could establish a port, and they decided that the place where today’s port is located was the deepest point on the coast. The place was then called ‘Derince Port’ (meaning deep in Turkish) due to the depth of the water.

From 1887, Derince received migrant workers from the Balkans, Caucasus and Crimea, and when the port came into operation in 1904, it started to develop and expand rapidly. In 1936, land for thirty houses were given to people migrating from Romania to Turkey. The area where homes were built connected Derince to Çınarlı village, and they became an independent neighborhood unit in 1952. Public buildings were added to the industrial ones – Kocaeli Police Department, a Military Hospital, the state grain management organisation, TMO, are all sited in Derince. Because of the effective and fast developing industrialization, it continued to receive intensive migration; its rapidly increasing population helped to make it a sub-province in 1999.