Current Time in Gebze, Turkey

Gebze stands at the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara, in the Turkish province of Kocaeli, on the narrow strip of land between the Gulf of İzmit and the wooded hills that rise behind it. Although administratively separate, it forms part of the continuous urban and industrial belt that stretches eastwards from Istanbul, and the boundary of the metropolis lies only a few kilometres away. Its position on the historic land route between Europe and Anatolia has shaped its fortunes for more than two thousand years.

The district has a population approaching four hundred thousand and ranks among the most important manufacturing centres in Turkey. Dozens of organised industrial zones fill the surrounding valleys, producing chemicals, pharmaceuticals, cement, paint, machinery, electronics, plastics, food and automotive components. Many of the largest Turkish and international companies operate plants here, and the port facilities along the gulf handle raw materials and exports.

In antiquity the town was known as Dakibyza and later as Libyssa, and it is remembered as the place where the Carthaginian general Hannibal took his own life rather than be handed over to the Romans, an event marked by a modern monument. Under Byzantine and then Ottoman rule the settlement guarded a stage of the great road running east from Constantinople. In the sixteenth century the grand vizier Çoban Mustafa Pasha endowed a magnificent complex of mosque, tomb, soup kitchen, caravanserai and school, still the finest monument in the town. Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent died nearby while returning from campaign, and the district grew steadily until industrialisation transformed it after the 1960s.

Visitors come for the Çoban Mustafa Pasha complex, an outstanding example of classical Ottoman architecture built of coloured stone, and for the fishing village of Eskihisar with its ruined Byzantine castle overlooking the gulf. There the house of Osman Hamdi Bey, the celebrated Ottoman painter and archaeologist who founded the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, is preserved as a museum surrounded by gardens. Ballıkayalar Nature Park, a dramatic limestone canyon popular with climbers and walkers, lies a short drive inland, and the Osmangazi Bridge across the gulf is an impressive sight.

Everyday life mixes industrial modernity with older Marmara traditions. Tea gardens, fish restaurants along the shore, weekly markets and lively shopping centres serve a young and largely working population drawn from every region of Turkey, which gives the town a varied and open atmosphere.

Transport is exceptionally good. Gebze is the eastern terminus of the Marmaray suburban railway, which runs under the Bosphorus to the European side of Istanbul, and it is served by high-speed trains to Ankara, by metro and bus lines, by ferries across the gulf and by major motorways. Gebze Technical University and the Marmara Research Centre of the national scientific council make the district an important hub for engineering and applied research.

Gebze matters as a powerhouse of Turkish industry with a surprisingly rich historical heritage.