Drone Videos of Turkey's Marmara Region

In Istanbul, the Golden Horn is a natural peninsula which separates the area known as Old Istanbul from the rest of the greater city.  To best appreciate this historically and geographically significant area (as well as the stunning red roofs, mosque spires, and busy Bosphorus Strait), one simply can watch this beautiful Drone Video of the Week nominee by content creator impalos.   With modern skyscrapers in the backdrop, these aerial views reflect of the city’s storied history and beautiful architecture.

Check out this amazing drone action reel from northwestern Turkey, compliments of content creator and pilot prusafpv.  The video was shot from across the Marmara region, which covers several provinces in the northwestern corner of the giant country.  While the area is home to Istanbul and Bursa, Turkey's largest and fourth largest cities, respectively, what you'll see here are the wide open spaces of this region, including its impressive mountains and beautiful shoreline on the Aegean Sea.  

Top AirVuz contributor and pilot Drone Adam put his DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone to good use creating this fantastic wintertime aerial view of the mountains of northwestern Turkey.  It was shot in the Bolu Province, which is part of the East Marmara region east of the Gulf of İzmit.  Located between Turkey's two largest cities - Istanbul and Ankara - Bolu is a largely rural region.  With some of the country's most well-known forested areas, much of the province is covered by the Köroğlu Mountains.  

Check out this magnificent aerial video of a popular resort town on the Black Sea in northwestern Turkey, compliments of contributor Yekalay.  Şile is a mid-sized town in the Istanbul province, about an hour's drive east from the Istanbul city center.  An old fishing village, the village has become a prime seaside destination for Greater Istanbul and its 15+ million residents.  The town's most notable landmark, which features prominently in the video, is Şile Castle, built in the 14th century on a small island.

Bursa is one of the most important cities in Turkey.  It lies in the northwestern corner of the country, a bit south of the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara.  Bursa was an early capital of the Ottoman Empire, a position it kept until the Empire finally conquered Istanbul (then, Constantinople) in the middle of the 16th century.  Today, it's the center of one of the most industrialized regions of Turkey as well its fourth largest city.  Get an aerial glimpse of Bursa in this drone video by contributor and pilot M C Photography.

Some of the best natural scenery in northwestern Turkey can be found around Lake Uluabat, a large, shallow lake situated a bit to the west of the city of Bursa (Turkey's fourth-largest city).  Uluabat is known in part for a series of islands which dot the lake, as well as for a series of peninsulas which jut southwards from its northern shore.  At the tip of the easternmost of these peninsulas is a town called Gölyazı, which is home to numerous Roman ruins.  You can see it from above in this drone video by IlkerCagatayAsik.

Contributor Korayus used a drone to record an epic hike to the peak of one of Turkey's most important mountains.  Mt. Uludağ is located in the province of Bursa in the northwestern part of the country.  With a peak elevation of about 2.55k meters (just over 8.3k ft.) above sea level, it is the highest mountain in the entire Marmara region.  The mountain is known as Olympos in Greek, and like its "cousin" mountain in northern Greece, Uludağ was once home to numerous Eastern Orthodox monasteries.  

Check out this DVOW Finalist of a beautiful spot in northern Turkey, compliments of contributor Burak Arslan. It's a district called Akçakoca, one of eight which make up the Düzce Province in East Marmara, the region which covers the areas to the east and south of Istanbul.  Situated along the Black Sea coast, the district is roughly equidistant from Istanbul and the Turkish capital city of Ankara. The video features footage of the district's namesake town, its stunning beaches and coastline, and its mountainous interior.   

Content creator and drone pilot Pascha created this stunning drone video of Cunda Island, which lies off the northwestern part of Asian Turkey.  A popular Aegean Sea resort destination, Cunda is part of the Ayvalık archipelago, which in turn is part of the Balıkesir province in Turkey's Marmara region.  The island has been connected to the Turkish mainland since a causeway was built in the 1960's.  The video captures the stunning blue waters of the Aegean as well as the numerous smaller islands which surround Cunda. 

Contributor and pilot Korayus used a drone to record a holiday in a small but culturally important town in the northwestern region of Turkey.  It's called Assos, and it's in the Çanakkale Province near the very western end of the country.  The town dates to about 1000 BC and is thought to have been founded by colonists from the nearby island of Lesbos.  Assos is known first and foremost as the spot where the great Greek philospher Aristotle went in 348 BC to open an academy of learning after he left Athens.  

Tirilye is a historic town on the south shore of the Sea of Marmara, Turkey's great inland sea which connects the Aegean Sea and (via the Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits) the Black Sea.  Like many of the towns in Turkey's Marmara and Aegean regions, Tililye was founded by the Greeks who colonized western Turkey in the first milennium BC.  Seen here in this drone video by dronevfx, it's home to a number of Byzantine-era churches which subsequently became mosques as control of the region shifted into the hands of the Ottoman Empire.  

AirVuz contributor and pilot Yekalay used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone and a GoPro camera to capture these scenes from northwestern Turkey during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020.  The footage was captured around the city of İzmit, the largest in the Kocaeli Province, which lies about 100 km (around 60 mi.) east of Istanbul.  While Turkey's first infection wasn't confirmed until the second week of March, by late April it surpassed 100,000 cases and was the largest epicenter for the outbreak in the Middle East.  

Check out this beautiful drone videos from the mountains of northwestern Turkey, compliments of content creator and pilot TerranGoruntu.  The video was shot near the town of Keles, which is situated more or less due south of Mt. Uludağ, the highest mountain in the region.  The town and the mountain are part of the Bursa District, the capital of which is Turkey's fourth largest city and which lies a bit further to the north of Uludağ.  The natural scenery is some of the best in the entire Marmara Region.

Contributor and drone pilot gokhanakman created this amazing aerial video of one of the world's longest suspension bridges.  The Osmangazi Bridge spans the Gulf of İzmit, an eastern extension of the Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey.  The bridge, which opened in mid-2016, has a total length of almost 2.7k meters (almost 8.8k ft.).  Among other things, the span greatly shortened the driving distance between Istanbul and İzmir, the country's largest and third largest cities, respectively.

Content creator and pilot Ugurevin used a DJI Phantom 2 drone to create this spectacuar aerial video of the mountainous area around Bursa in northwestern Turkey.  Bursa is in Turkey's Marmara province, which covers much of northwestern Turkey including the metropolis of Istanbul.  Bursa is Turkey's fourth largest city after Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.  The video captures the city and its surroundings during the depths of winter, which (perhaps surprisingly) involves a good deal of snow cover.

Check out this video from a beautiful forested wetland in the far northwestern reaches of Turkey.  The İğneada Floodplain Forests National Park is situated in the Kırklareli Province, which is on the western (European) side of the Marmara Region of northwestern Turkey.  It's located near the Bulgarian border, in the foothills of the Strandzha mountain range.  The park was established to protect the fragile ecosystem of the area, which includes forests, various types of wetlands, as well as sand dunes.  

Content creator and pilot Iskenderfilm created this spectacular drone video of the Kilimli bay in Şile, Turkey.  Şile is an ancient small town on Turkey's Black Sea coastline, just to the northeast of the great city of Istanbul.  It is known for its beaches, which are considered some of the finest on the Black Sea.  It's also known for the spectacular rocks that lie just offshore.  Despite the beautiful beaches, it's also known for treacherous currents which can make swimming very dangerous.  

Here's an amazing drone video from a nature park in northwestern Turkey, compliments of content creator and pilot Erman Çatı.  It's called the Sülüklü Göl National Park, and it's situated in the Bolu Province.  The province lies just to the west of the Sea of Marmara in the East Marmara region.  It's an area of forests and lakes; a scene of serene natural beauty just a short drive from both Istanbul and Bursa, the largest and fourth largest cities in the country, respectively.  

Kilimli Bay is an enclave off the Black Sea in northwestern Turkey.  It's near the seaside resort town of Ağva in the Province of Istanbul, in the Marmara region which covers the northwestern corner of the country.  Located a bit over an hour's drive east and a bit north of the city of Istanbul, this area of the Black Sea coast is a popular beach destination for visitors from the giant city.  In this drone video by iskenderfilms, you'll get a bird's eye view of this beautiful stretch of the Turkish coastline.  

For centuries, scholars have debated whether the story of the 'Trojan Horse" has historical foundation.  Based on archaeological evidence, it is now believed that Troy, the city state which was at war with Athens and Sparta, was an actual city in western Turkey, near the present day city of Hisarlik.  In this drone video by jesus_tr, you'll get a look at the site from the second millennium BC, which was famously referenced in two of the greatest works of western literature: Virgil's Aenid and Plato's The Odyssey.  

Check out this lovely drone video of the area around the Turkish city of Bolu.  It's in the province of the same name, which is part of the East Marmara region.  Bolu is situated roughly halfway between Turkey's two largest cities: Istanbul to its northwest and the capital city Ankara to its southeast.  Like much of this part of Turkey, it's a heavily forested area with many shimmering lakes.  The video includes footage over a number of different seasons, each of which presents the landscape in a unique light.  

Lake Sapanca is a scenic, fresh water lake in the Marmara region of western Turkey.  The lake is framed by beautiful mountains and hills on both the northern and southern shorelines.  Lake Sapanca lies due east from the eastern end of the Gulf of Ismit, the eastern bay of the Sea of Marmara. One of the area's larger lakes, Sapanca has a surface area of about 45 square km (around 14 square mi.).   You can see the beautiful lake from a bird's eye perspective in this drone video from contributor and pilot Aslanozcan.

Turkey's Marmara region covers the northwestern corner of the country and is a study in contrasts.  It's the country's most densely populated region, home to its largest and fourth largest cities (Istanbul and Bursa), and in general the most industrialized part of the country.  At the same time, it's a region of beautiful lakes, wetlands, and stretches of coastline on the Aegean Sea.  In this beautiful drone video by Batu Turkey, you'll get a bird's eye view of some of the nature conservation areas in this fascinating region.   

In this drone video, you’ll see something beautiful and something like you’ve never seen before. It comes courtesy of pilot gokhanakman and is all shot in Turkey. The beautiful piece is Yedigöller National Park, a park best known for its seven lakes, is located in the northern part of Bolu Province. The second half of the piece features Burj Al Babas, a residential development whose homes are meant to resemble mini chateaux, however the developer went in to bankruptcy, leaving these odd 732 homes eerily empty.

Darica is a small town which lies at the entrance to the Gulf of İzmit, a large bay at the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey.  It's part of the Koaceli Province just east of Istanbul, in the East Marmara Region.  One of the top attractions in and around Darica is  Bayramoglu, a peninsula which resembles a three fingered hand on a map.  Seen from above in this aerial video by AirVuz contributor and drone pilot Drone Adam, Bayramoglu is considered one of the top getaway destinations in the region.  

Contributor and drone pilot tntrmedia created this beautiful aerial video of Turkey's largest island.  It's called Gökçeada, and it is situated in the Aegean Sea, just northwest of the opening of the Dardanelles Strait.  It's part of the Çanakkale Province, which in turn is part of the West Marmara region that covers much of the northwestern part of the country.  The island covers about 280 square km (around 110 square mi.).  It's one of the few Turkish-controlled Aegean islands; most are Greek territories.  

Check out this highly cinematic drone video from northwestern Turkey, compliments of contributor Tntrmedia.  It was filmed near the town of Kartepe, in the province of Kocaeli which lies to the east of the Sea of Marmara, southeast of Istanbul.  While the western end of the province blends in to metropolitan Istanbul, the area you will see in the video is quite rural.  Shot in the winter, the video will take you through a hauntingly beautiful forested area, far removed from any trace of urban civilization.  

Contributor and drone pilot IlkerCagatayAsik used a DJI Mavic Pro 2 drone to create this beautiful aerial of the area around Mt. Uludağ in northwestern Turkey.  The mountain is part of Turkey's Uludağ National Park, which is situated just south of Bursa, the largest city in Turkey's Marmara Region south of the Sea of Marmara and the country's fourth largest city overall.   Mt. Uludağ is called Mt. Olympos in Greek and is of considerable significance to the Eastern Orthodox religion which once prevailed here.  

The Golcuk Nature Park is one of the natural treasures of northwestern Turkey.  It's located roughly midway between Istanbul and Ankara, the country's two largest cities.  The park is part of the Bolu Province, part of the East Marmara Region, which is known for its forested mountains.  Shot during the autumn months, the landscapes here bear some resemblance to the USA's New England region or Scandinavia; most people seeing this video would guess that it was filmed in the Middle Eastern nation of Turkey.  

Top contributor and pilot jesus_tr created this beautiful drone video of a famous mountain in northwestern Turkey.  Mt. Ida is situated across two provinces near the northern coast of the Aegean Sea's Gulf of Edremit,in the Marmara region.  It's located just 20 km (around 12 mi.) from the ruins of the ancient city of Troy.  Its proximity to Troy is the reason why the mountain earns mention in two of the most important works of Western literature: the Iliad by the Greek poet Homer, and the Aeneid by the Roman Virgil.  

Top content creator and pilot jesus_tr created this moving aerial video to the monuments commemorating the World War I Battle of Gallipoli.  The battle was joined in March, 1915 with an Allied naval bombardment of the Dardanelles Strait followed by landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula, in an attempt to  knock Turkey out of the war.  The invading forces were not able to take the commanding heights above the beaches, where Turkish forces under future leader Kemal Ataturk held fast over months of attacks.  

Contributor Erman Çatı created this stunning drone video of Turkey's rocky Black Sea coastline east of Istanbul.  The area filmed is around Kerpe, a small village which is part of the province of Kocaeli in the East Marmara region of northwestern Turkey.  The town sits at the head of a small bay which faces to the northwest and which is a roughly two hour ride east and a bit north of Istanbul.  Kocaeli is one of the country's most developed provinces and is considered the industrial heart of Turkey.  

For a first upload to AirVuz, akyuzz videography brings us this stunning drone video of a national park in northwestern Turkey.  It's called Yedigöller National Park, and it's in the Bolu province of the country.  It's also known as Seven Lakes National Park, in reference to the seven lakes which were created by landslides and which form the centerpiece of the park.  Established in 1965, the park is part of the East Marmara region and is situated between Istanbul (to its west) and the national capital Ankara to its east.  

Turkey is one of the top dozen countries in the world for windpower generation capacity.  As of the end of 2017, the country had about 6.5GW of installed capacity, which generated about 7% of its electricity needs.  Most of the country's nearly 200 wind farms are concentrated in the western part of the country, in the Aegean and Marmara region.  In this drone video by top contributor Omer Gokcen, you'll get a bird's eye view of some spinning turbines near the city of Bandırma, by the Sea of Marmara.

Check out this aerial video from a beautiful town on Turkey's Sea of Marmara, compliments of contributor and drone pilot IlkerCagatayAsik.  It's the town of Güzelyalı, and it lies on a kind of inlet in the southeastern part of the sea.  It's part of the Bursa province, and it's more or less due north from the Bursa's namesake provincial capital (and Turkey's fourth largest city).  This is an area which has become much more accessible from Istanbul since the opening of the Osman Gazi Bridge in 2016.  

One of the most popular spots for rock climbing in Turkey is in the area around the Ballikayalar Park, which lies in the Gebzi district of the Koaceli province in the Marmara region.  It's situated less than an hour's drive east and a bit south of Istanbul, near the Gulf of Izmit (an extension of the Sea of Marmara).  The limestone outcrops here make for some great climbing.  In this drone video by kaplan murat kelo, you'll get a unique perspective on climbers tackling these formations.  The video was shot with a DJI Mavic Pro 2.

Check out this beautiful drone video of a Turkish seaside town called Erdek.  Erdek is situated on the Gulf of Erdek on the south side of the Sea of Marmara, just east of the Dardanelles Strait (which connects the Sea of Maramara o the Aegean Sea).  It's part of the province of Balikesir, which covers the southern part of the West Marmara region.  Erdek has become a popular beach/seaside destination for tourists from the larger nearby Turkish cities, namely Istanbul and Bursa, as well as from the Aegean region to the south.

Top contributor and drone pilot tntrmedia created this excellent aerial video of an idyllic spot in northwestern Turkey.  It's the area around Artur Guvercin Koyu Beach.  It is situated just a half-hour drive north of the city of Ayvalik on the Aegean Sea.  This ancient area is part of the Balıkesir Province in the West Marmara region.  The area retains a strong Greek heritage, and lies very close to a number of islands which remain Greek territories such as Lesbos, Rhodes, and numerous others.  

Şile Feneri is one of the most famous lighthouses in Turkey.  It's located at the end of cape in Şile, an old town on the shores of the Black Sea just east of Istanbul.  The lighthouse was designed by a French architectural firm commissioned by the Ottoman rulers and went into service in 1860.  The tower stands 19 meters (about 62 ft.) tall. The lighthouse remains operational and is open to the public.   You can check out this well-known landmark from above in this drone video by contributor BuyuK KuS.

Contributor Turkey Home uploaded this incredible drone video of a mosque in the very northwestern corner of Turkey.  Built in the late 16th century, the Selimiye Mosque in the city of Edirne, once known as Adrianople.  It's in the Edirne region, the portion of Turkey which falls on the Thracian Plain near the borders with Greece and Bulgaria.  Edirne was the third capital city of the Ottoman Empire, the last before it moved to the final capital at Istanbul following the seige of that city in 1453.

Contributor Atamer.medya created this highly cinematic aerial video of one of the most well-known lakes in Turkey, a country known in part for its lakes.  It's called Lake Ulubat, and it's a large, shallow lake located south of the Sea of Marmara and a short distance due west of Bursa, Turkey's most industrialized major city.  The video features footage of the village of Gölyazı, the lake's best known settlement, which sits at the tip of a small peninsula jutting into the lake from the northeast.  

Contributor and drone pilot Atamer.medya creatd this beautiful aerial of a town on the shores of Turkey's Lake Uluabat.  Golyazı is located on a peninsula on the eastern shore of the lake, one of the largest in the Marmara Region of northwestern Turkey.  Like many of the cities and towns of western Turkey, it was founded by the Greeks during the Antiquity.  The town was visited by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the second century AD.  It's located about an hour's drive west of the major city of Bursa.

Check out these wintertime drone views from the mountains of northwestern Turkey, compliments of AirVuz contributor Drone Adam.  It was shot around the town of Kartepe in the Kocaeli Province of the East Marmara Region.  Kartepe is located in a hilly-to-mountainous area between the Gulf of İzmit (the eastern extension of the Sea of Marmara) and Lake Sapanca.  The name "Kartepe" translates roughly to "snowy hills", and when you watch the video you'll see it's an appropriate name for this winter wonderland.  

When you see this beautiful wintertime drone video by AirVuz contributor akyuzz videography, you might think you were flying over the hills of the USA's New England region or perhaps somewhere in Scandinavia.  In fact, the snow-covered forest featured in the video is in the Middle Eastern nation of Turkey.  It was filmed in the province of Bolu in the East Marmara region of northwestern Turkey, east of the Gulf of İzmir.   Roughly halfway between Istanbul and Ankara, the province's highlands experience a full-blown winter.  

You can see three of the great landmarks of Istanbul, Turkey in this awesome drone video by iskenderfilm. First up is Beyazıt Tower, an Ottoman era watchtower in the Fatih District, sitting atop the city's so-called Third Hill. Next stop is Galata Tower, a medieval stone tower which is located at one of the city's most scenic spots, where the Golden Horn inlet joins to the Bosphorus. The third spot featured is the 16th century Süleymaniye Mosque, which also sits on the Third Hill. This video won DVOW in August, 2019.