The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (), also known as the Third Bosphorus Bridge'','' is a vehicular bridge over the

Bosphorus The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait ( ; , colloquially ) is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul, Turkey. The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental bo ...

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

, to the north of Istanbul's two older

suspension bridge A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck (bridge), deck is hung below suspension wire rope, cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridg ...

s, the 15 July Martyrs Bridge being the First Bosphorus Bridge and

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge ("Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror Bridge"; , abbreviated as ''F.S.M. Köprüsü''), also known as the Second Bosphorus Bridge (), is a bridge in Istanbul, Turkey spanning the Bosphorus strait (Turkish: ''Boğaziçi'') ...

the Second Bosphorus Bridge. The bridge is located near the entrance to 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 ...

from the Bosphorus strait, between Garipçe in

Sarıyer Sarıyer () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 177 km2 and its population is 350,454 (2022). It is on the northeastern part of Istanbul's European side. Sarıyer al ...

on the European side and

Poyrazköy Poyrazköy is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beykoz, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 889 (2022). Poyraz lies at the exit of the Bosporus into the Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal M ...

Beykoz Beykoz () is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 310 km2, and its population is 247,875 (2022). It lies at the northern end of the Bosphorus on the Anatolian side. The name i ...

on the Asian side. The foundation stone was laid on 29 May 2013 and the bridge opened to traffic on 26 August 2016. At , it is the world's fifth-tallest bridge of any type. The main span is the 13th longest suspension bridge in the worldIt is also one of the world's widest suspension bridges, at across. and also making it one of the biggest transport megaprojects.

Project

The bridge is part of the projected Northern Marmara Motorway (), which will bypass urban areas of northern Istanbul connecting Kınalı,

Silivri Silivri, formerly Selymbria (Greek language, Greek: Σηλυμβρία), is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Istanbul Province, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 217,163 (2022). It lies along the Sea of Marmara, outsi ...

in the west and Paşaköy, Hendek in the east. The bridge is in length with a main span of . Designed by the

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

engineer Jean-François Klein (project leader) and by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux from T-ingénierie (a

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

-based company), the bridge is a combined road-rail bridge. It carries four motorway lanes and one railway track in each direction. The construction was carried out by a consortium of the Turkish company İçtaş and the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

company

Astaldi Astaldi S.p.A. is an Italian multinational major construction company based in Rome. The group is active in the fields of civil engineering, hydraulic engineering, electromechanical engineering and transportation. Significant subsidiaries incl ...

which won the bid to construct it on 30 May 2012. The budgeted cost for the bridge was 4.5 billion TRY (approximately US$2.5 billion as of March 2013). Construction was originally expected to be completed in 36 months with the opening date scheduled for the end of 2015. According to the Minister of Transport and Communication

Binali Yıldırım Binali Yıldırım (; born 20 December 1955) is a Turkish politician who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 27th and last prime minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He w ...

, of the total area nationalised for the bridge, 9.57% was private property, 75.24% was forested land, and the remaining 15.19% was state-owned land. In June 2018, iduring the Turkish currency and debt crisis, Bloomberg reported that

and

Webuild Webuild S.p.A. (previously Salini Impregilo S.p.A.; ) is an Italian industrial group specialising in construction and civil engineering. The company was formally founded in 2014 as the result of the merger by incorporation of Salini into Impregi ...

, an Italian multinational construction company, were poised to sell their stake in the project for $467 million. The project had failed to meet projections, requiring Ankara to boost operators' revenue from treasury coffers, and since early 2018 the partners in the joint venture sought restructuring of $2.3 billion of debt from creditors. On July 30, 2018,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

ICBC The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC; zh, 中国工商银行) is a Chinese partially state-owned multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Beijing, China. It is the largest of the " big four" banks ...

was authorized as the lead regulator to refinance the $2.7 billion loan for the bridge. The bridge toll is set to be 100 between the motorway exits Odayeri and Riva. It is expected that at least 135,000 vehicles will use the bridge daily in each direction.

Construction

Plans for a third Bosphorus bridge were approved by the Ministry of Transportation in 2012. The construction of the project was awarded to the İçtaş-

consortium on 29 May 2012. Construction began officially with the laying of the foundation stone in a ceremony held on 29 May 2013, the anniversary of the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The ceremony was attended by the then State President

Abdullah Gül Abdullah Gül (; ; born 29 October 1950) is a Turkish politician who served as the 11th president of Turkey from 2007 to 2014. He previously served for four months as Prime Minister of Turkey, Prime Minister from 2002 to 2003, and concurrently s ...

, Prime Minister

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who is the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister of Turkey, prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Jus ...

and numerous high-ranking officials. Erdoğan directed the construction management team to complete construction within 24 months, and set the opening date for 29 May 2015.

Work was temporarily halted in July 2013 after it became evident that the site was poorly located, but by then thousands of trees had already been cut down. The paperwork filed for a change of plan written by the State Highways Directorate Director-General Mehmet Cahit Turhan on 11 June 2013, reads "it is appropriate to cancel the current construction plan due to the necessity of making a revision, which resulted from changes of the route project". Both the ministry and the construction company have denied any change to the site location. On 5 April 2014, a fatal accident occurred during construction of the link road to the bridge on the Asian side of the Bosphorus near Çavuşbaşı,

. Three workers were killed and another was injured when he fell from collapsed scaffolding while concrete was being poured at a viaduct.

Name of the bridge

At the ground-breaking ceremony President

announced that the bridge would be named the ''Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge'', in honour of Ottoman

Sultan Sultan (; ', ) is a position with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ', meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be use ...

Selim I Selim I (; ; 10 October 1470 – 22 September 1520), known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute (), was the List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. Despite lasting only eight years, his reign is ...

(–1520), who expanded the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

into the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

in 1514–1517 and obtained the title of

Caliph of Islam A caliphate ( ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; , ), a person considered a political–religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the enti ...

for the

Ottoman dynasty The Ottoman dynasty () consisted of the members of the imperial House of Osman (), also known as the Ottomans (). According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, under the leadership of Os ...

after his conquest of Egypt in 1517. He was nicknamed ''Yavuz'', traditionally translated in English as "Grim", but closer to "Stern" or "Implacable" in Turkish. The choice of name led to protests by Turkey's

Alevi Alevism (; ; ) is a syncretic heterodox Islamic tradition, whose adherents follow the mystical Islamic teachings of Haji Bektash Veli, who taught the teachings of the Twelve Imams, whilst incorporating some traditions from shamanism. Differing ...

community because of Sultan

's alleged role in the Ottoman persecution of Alevis. After the

Şahkulu Rebellion The Şahkulu rebellion was a widespread pro-Shia and pro-Safavid uprising in Anatolia, directed against the Ottoman Empire, in 1511. It began among the Turkmens, Turkmen tribes of the Taurus mountains, before spreading to a wide variety of disgrun ...

(1511) in

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 ...

, and the

Battle of Chaldiran The Battle of Chaldiran (; ) took place on 23 August 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans annexed Eastern Anatolia and Upper Mesopotamia from Safavid Iran. It marked ...

(1514) in northwestern Iran, during which the

Kızılbaş Qizilbash or Kizilbash (Latin script: ) ; ; (modern Iranian reading: ); were a diverse array of mainly Turkoman "The Qizilbash, composed mainly of Turkman tribesmen, were the military force introduced by the conquering Safavis to the Irani ...

warriors of the Alevis in eastern Anatolia (who adhere to the

Shia Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...

sect of

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

) sided with Shah Ismail I of

Safavid Persia The Guarded Domains of Iran, commonly called Safavid Iran, Safavid Persia or the Safavid Empire, was one of the largest and longest-lasting Iranian empires. It was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the beg ...

, the victorious Selim I ordered the massacre of the ''Kızılbaş'' whom he considered traitors and heretics (see also Ottoman–Safavid relations and

Ottoman–Persian Wars The Ottoman–Persian Wars also called the Ottoman–Iranian Wars were a series of wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid, Afsharid, Zand, and Qajar dynasties of Iran (also known as Persia) through the 16th–19th centuries. The Ot ...

Controversy surrounding the bridge

Land prices in the less urbanized areas on both sides of the Bosphorus immediately soared in expectation of an urbanization boom thanks to the new cross-water connection, according to ''Ekumenopolis'', a documentary film of 2010 about the area. The efficacy of the proclaimed goal of easing traffic congestion was also challenged, with some claiming that "the project is little more than a contrivance to open for development lands that had been long protected by law". Many consider the green areas and wetlands in question, producing most of the drinking water for the city, to be "essential for Istanbul's ecological and economic sustainability, and a possible pollution of the groundwater would provoke the collapse of the city". In 1995, Erdoğan, then mayor of Istanbul, had himself declared that a third bridge would mean "the murder of the city".

Opening ceremony

The opening ceremony on 26 August 2016 was attended by Bulgarian Prime Minister

Boyko Borisov Boyko Metodiev Borisov (, born 13 June 1959) is a Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria on three separate occasions, serving a total of 9 years between 2009 and 2021, making him the country's longest-serving post-communi ...

, Bosniak president of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegović, Macedonian President

Gjorge Ivanov Gjorge Ivanov (, ; born 2 May 1960) is a Macedonian academic and politician, who served as the President of (North) Macedonia from 2009 to 2019. Early life and education Ivanov was born in Valandovo on 2 May 1960. He finished primary and seco ...

, the King of Bahrain

Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Hamad bin Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa (born 28 January 1950) is King of Bahrain since 1999. He is a member of the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty. Early life and education Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was born on 28 January 1950 in Riffa, Bahrain. ...

and President of the self-declared state of

Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a ''de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the Geography of Cyprus, island of Cyprus. It is List of states with limited recognition, recognis ...

Mustafa Akıncı Mustafa Akıncı (; born 28 December 1947) is a Turkish Cypriots, Turkish Cypriot politician who was the president of Northern Cyprus from April 2015 until October 2020. An architect by profession, Akıncı in 1976 became the first elected mayor ...

. Also, Chief Minister of Punjab (Pakistan)

Shahbaz Sharif Mian Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif (born 23 September 1951) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who has served as the 20th Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan since March 2024, having previously been in the role between Ap ...

Sandžak Sandžak (Serbian Cyrillic: ; ) is a historical and geo-political region in the Balkans, located in the southwestern part of Serbia and the eastern part of Montenegro. The Bosnian/ Serbian term ''Sandžak'' derives from the Sanjak of Novi Paza ...

Bosniak Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia

Rasim Ljajić Rasim Ljajić ( sr-Cyrl, Расим Љајић, ; born 28 January 1964) is a Serbian politician and sports administrator who currently serves as president of FK Partizan. A prominent Bosniak politician from Novi Pazar and president of Social D ...

, First Vice Prime Minister of

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

Dimitri Kumsishvili and high-ranking officials from

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

also attended the opening ceremony. Turkish President

and Prime Minister

delivered speeches.

Galleries

File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3065.jpg, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy road File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge MG 3032.jpg, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, Poyrazköy leg File:Yavuz_Sultan_Selim_Bridge_IMG_3028.jpg File:Yavuz-Sultan-Selim-Brücke.jpg File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3080.jpg, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge IMG 3074.jpg, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, view from Poyrazköy

Stages of construction

File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge p3 Jan 2014.JPG, Poyrazköy pylons (view from Garipçe, Sarıyer in January 2014) File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge p7 Jan 2014.JPG, Poyrazköy pylons (view from Garipçe in January 2014) File:2 Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge July 2015.jpg, View from

Anadolu Kavağı Anadolu (from Ancient Greek , 'east') is the Turkish form of Anatolia, which refers to a region of the world that is now part of the nation of Turkey, also known as Asia Minor (Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medie ...

, July 2015 File:Poyrazköy'den 3. köprü.jpg, View from

, July 2015 File:Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge Istanbul.jpg, Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, 24 August 2016

References

Sources

External links

* {{Supertall 2016 establishments in Turkey Beykoz Bosphorus crossings Bridges completed in 2016 Bridges in Istanbul Cable-stayed bridges in Turkey Railway bridges in Turkey Road bridges in Turkey Road-rail bridges Sarıyer Toll bridges in Turkey