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.

Contributor 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 in the Ayvalık archipelago, which is part of the Balıkesir province.  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 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.

Contributor 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 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.  

Top contributor 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 Ugurevin used a DJI Phantom 2 drone to create this spectacuar aerial video of the mountainous area around Bursa in western 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.

Lake Sapanca is a scenic, fresh water lake in the Marmara region of western Turkey, and is framed by beautiful mountains and hills on both the northern and southern shorelines.  The lake 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 Aslanozcan.

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 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.  

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.  

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 Straits of Bosphorus) 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.  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.  

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.  

Rumeli Fortress sits on the European side of the Straits of Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey.  Rumeli played a critical role in the seige of the city then known as Constantinople by forces under Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who overwhelmed it after a 53 day seige in 1453.  The sack of what was then the world's largest city marked the end of the Byzantine Empire (the formal successor to the Roman Empire) and is considered one of the most important historical events of the Middle Ages.

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.  

Contributor Korayus used a drone to record a holiday in a small but culturally important town in northwestern 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 where the great Greek philospher Aristotle went in 348 BC to open an academy of learning after he left Athens.  

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.

Check out this beautiful drone videos from the mountains of northwestern Turkey, compliments of contributor TerranGoruntu.  The video was shot near the town of Keles, which lies 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 third 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.

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 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 M C Photography.

Contributor Tntrmedia created this beautiful wintertime drone video of an area near the town of Kartepe in northwestern Turkey. The area lies between the Gulf of Kocaeli (an eastern extension of the Sea of Marmara) and Lake Sapanca, oone of the largest lakes of the Marmara region.  It's part of the Kocaeli province, which cover much of the area to the east of the Sea of Marmara.  As you'll see in the video, the area around Kartepe is one of beautiful forested mountains, a true winter wonderland.  

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.