The Bosporus: shipping, the Montreux Convention and Black Sea security, and Istanbul on both shores of the strait
For most of the war, the Bosporus itself has been the quiet part of the Black Sea. Ships queued off Istanbul, paid their lighthouse fees and went north or south as they always had. The danger began past Rumeli Feneri, at the strait's northern mouth. In 2026 that danger moved…
For most of Istanbul's history the only way across the Bosporus was a boat. The first bridge opened on 30 October 1973, timed for the 50th…
The best way to understand the Bosporus is to get on the water with the people who live along it. Istanbul's ferries carry commuters between Europe…
Istanbul's waterfront neighbourhoods are often described as villages, and from a ferry they look like it: mosques by the water, wooden houses…
The Ottoman sultans moved down to the water in the 19th century. For nearly four hundred years they had ruled from Topkapı, a cluster of pavilions on…
About 110 ships a day sail through the middle of Istanbul. Turkey's transport ministry counted 40,172 transits of the Bosporus in 2025, and another…
On 7 April 2018 a Maltese-flagged bulk carrier, the Vitaspirit, lost steering while heading south through the Bosporus and drove straight into the…
On a map the Bosporus looks like a river. It runs about 31 kilometres from the Black Sea at Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri down to the Sea of…
Between January and June 2026, 19,277 ships passed through the Bosporus, according to Turkey's transport ministry. That is 107 a day, slightly fewer…
On 13 October 2026 Turkey's transport ministry said it wanted to put Canal Istanbul out to tender and start building "as soon as possible". It gave…
