Nara Burnu ( Turkish "Cape Nara"), formerly Nağara Burnu, in English Nagara Point, and in older sources Point Pesquies, is a headland on the

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

n side of the

Dardanelles Straits The Dardanelles ( ; ; ), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli (after the Gallipoli peninsula) and in classical antiquity as the Hellespont ( ; ), is a narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey th ...

, north of

Çanakkale Çanakkale is a city and seaport in Turkey on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. It is the seat of Çanakkale Province and Çanakkale District.Dardanelles Strait The Dardanelles ( ; ; ), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli (after the Gallipoli peninsula) and in classical antiquity as the Hellespont ( ; ), is a narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway in northwestern Turkey th ...

. As a result, it is also the point where the

surface current An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of seawater generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, ...

from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

to the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

is the strongest, with 1.5 to 2 times the normal rate, occasionally reaching the speed of per hour. The undercurrent is per hour, flowing in the opposite direction.Oceanography of the Turkish Straits - Volume 2, Issue 1 - Page 2-9, 1988. "The first two stations cover the northeastern part of the Strait from its Marmara end (Gelibolu-Çardak section) to the vicinity of the Nara Burnu where the channel is constricted and bends sharply. The profiles of the hydrographic properties are ..." The ancient and medieval city of Abydos is located at the Nara promontory. Due to the narrowness of the straits at this point, the site was often chosen for crossings of the Dardanelles by armies, beginning with the

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, it was the large ...

monarch

Xerxes I Xerxes I ( – August 465 BC), commonly known as Xerxes the Great, was a List of monarchs of Persia, Persian ruler who served as the fourth King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 486 BC until his assassination in 465 BC. He was ...

during his Invasion of Greece in 480 BC, who deployed

pontoon bridges A pontoon bridge (or ponton bridge), also known as a floating bridge, is a bridge that uses float (nautical), floats or shallow-draft (hull), draft boats to support a continuous deck for pedestrian and vehicle travel. The buoyancy of the support ...

to allow his army to cross on foot.

References

Dardanelles Promontories Geography of Çanakkale Province Headlands of Turkey {{coord, 40, 11, 47, N, 26, 24, 52, E, region:TR, display=title