Samsun: Where the Black Sea Meets Two Deltas

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1. What is Samsun?
2. How do you get to Samsun?
3. Where should you stay in Samsun?
4. What type of climate does Samsun have?
5. When is the best time to visit Samsun?
6. What is the history of Samsun?
7. What is Samsun famous for?
8. What are the historical places of Samsun?
9. What are the best things to do in Samsun?
10. What are the best places to visit in Samsun?
11. What is the traditional food of Samsun?
12. Frequently asked questions about Samsun
13. What do the official records say about Samsun?

What is Samsun?

Samsun is the largest city on Türkiye’s Black Sea coast and the capital of a province that stretches between two great river deltas. The Kızılırmak, the country’s longest river, reaches the sea at Bafra in the west of the province; the Yeşilırmak reaches it at Çarşamba in the east. Between them lies a long, flat shoreline of sandy beaches, and behind it rise two mountain ranges running east to west: the Canik Mountains in the east and the Çangal Mountains in the west.

For Turks the city’s name is tied to one date. On 19 May 1919 Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed here from the steamer Bandırma, and that landing is treated as the beginning of the War of Independence. The date is a national holiday, and the city’s main museums and monuments are built around it.

For travellers, Samsun is a practical base on the Black Sea road: it has the region’s busiest airport, a seafront lined with parks, a modern museum, and a day-trip range that takes in the Kızılırmak Delta, the 13th-century wooden mosque at Göğceli and the spa towns of Havza and Ladik. Amasya, with its Pontic rock tombs, is about two hours inland.

Places to visit in Samsun

Kızılırmak Delta

Kızılırmak Delta near Bafra: a Ramsar wetland with over 300 bird species,…

Bandırma Ship Museum

Bandırma Ship Museum in Samsun: the replica of the steamer that brought…

Amisos Hill

Amisos Hill in Samsun: Hellenistic burial mounds of the ancient city of…

Göğceli Mosque

Göğceli Mosque in Çarşamba, Samsun: a timber mosque dated to 1206, built…

How do you get to Samsun?

By air: Samsun Çarşamba Airport (SZF) is about 23 km east of the city centre. Turkish Airlines flies from Istanbul Airport, and AJet and Pegasus from Sabiha Gökçen. There are also domestic flights from Ankara, İzmir, Antalya and Adana, and in summer seasonal flights from several German cities and Vienna. Shuttle buses and taxis run into town.

By road: Samsun sits on the coastal D.010 highway, which connects it with Sinop to the west and Ordu and Trabzon to the east, and on the main road south to Amasya, Çorum and Ankara. Intercity coaches arrive from almost every Turkish city.

By rail: The railway runs south from the city centre station towards Amasya and Sivas. It is slow but scenic, following the river valleys inland.

Getting around: A tram line runs along the coast from Ondokuz Mayıs University in Atakum, through the centre, to Tekkeköy. For the delta, Göğceli or the spa towns you need a car, a taxi or a district minibus.

Where should you stay in Samsun?

Most visitors stay either in the city centre (İlkadım district), close to the museums, the bazaar and the Atatürk monument, or along the seafront in Atakum to the west, a long coastal suburb of apartment blocks, hotels, cafés and beaches. Atakum is the better choice in summer; the centre is more practical for a short stay or an early start towards Amasya.

Havza, an old spa town inland, has thermal hotels if you want to combine sightseeing with the hot springs. For the Kızılırmak Delta, Bafra is the nearest town.

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What type of climate does Samsun have?

Samsun has a humid subtropical climate on the coast: warm summers, with average August highs around 27°C, and cool, wet winters, with January lows around 4°C. It is drier in summer and milder in winter than most of the Black Sea coast further east. The 2002 inventory notes that rainfall is lower and temperatures higher than in the Eastern Black Sea, that winters on the coast are mild, spring is foggy and cool, and summer is dry. Inland, towards Havza and Ladik, the climate becomes more continental, with colder winters.

When is the best time to visit Samsun?

Late May to September is the best period for the city and the beaches. Around 19 May the city fills up for the commemorations of Atatürk’s landing, with events through the week, so book ahead if you plan to be there then. July and August are the beach months; the inventory notes that the coast offers about two months of sea season a year.

Birdwatchers have a different calendar. The Kızılırmak Delta is interesting all year, but spring and autumn bring migrants and winter brings tens of thousands of waterbirds.

What is the history of Samsun?

The 2002 inventory sums up the province’s past in one line: settled life began here around 5000 BC, and from the Early Bronze Age through the Kaska (Gasga), the Hittites, the Ionians, the Persians, Rome, Byzantium and Islamic civilisation, a long mosaic of history and culture took shape.

The earliest traces are on the edges of the deltas. At İkiztepe, 7 km northeast of Bafra, a mound discovered in 1941 sits on what was once the mouth of the Kızılırmak, before the Bafra plain formed. At Tekkeköy, rock outcrops along the Fındıcak and Çınarcık streams are pierced with caves and hollows, and the inventory records that excavations in 1941 brought to light material from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Hittite periods. The rock known as Delikli Kaya was found to be a Phrygian fortress.

The city itself began as Amisos, a Greek colony founded by settlers from Miletus around 760–750 BC on the headland northwest of today’s centre. It became one of the main cities of the Kingdom of Pontus, was taken by Rome in 71 BC and later served as the capital of Roman Pontus. The tumuli on Amisos Hill date from its Hellenistic heyday.

After Byzantine rule the city passed to the Seljuks and, in the 14th century, to the Ilkhanids, whose governor Emir Timurtaş Pasha gave his name to the Kale Mosque in 1314. Genoese merchants kept a trading station here, and the Ottomans took the city for good in 1420. In the 19th century Samsun grew as the export port for the tobacco of the Bafra and Çarşamba plains.

On 19 May 1919 Mustafa Kemal landed at Samsun from the Bandırma. The inventory records that he stayed in the building known as Mıntıka Palas, which the people of Samsun later gave to him; it is now the Gazi Museum.

What is Samsun famous for?

19 May 1919. The Bandırma Ship Museum, the Gazi Museum, the Atatürk Monument (Onur Anıtı) in the city centre and the Atatürk House in Havza all mark the journey that began here.

The deltas. The inventory calls the Kızılırmak Delta the largest and most important wetland on Türkiye’s Black Sea coast that has kept its natural character. It is a Ramsar site and one of the country’s best birdwatching areas.

Wooden architecture. The Göğceli Mosque in Çarşamba is a timber mosque dated to 1206, built of interlocking planks with almost no nails.

Pide. Bafra pide, long and boat-shaped, is the province’s best-known dish.

What are the historical places of Samsun?

In the city

Samsun Museum. A large new museum building, its shape inspired by Black Sea waves, which the provincial directorate describes as the largest museum in the Black Sea region. About 7,000 objects are displayed, including mosaics and finds from ancient Amisos, a bronze athlete statue and Hellenistic jewellery. It replaced the Archaeology and Ethnography Museum that opened in 1981.

Gazi Museum. On Mecidiye Caddesi in the Kale quarter. The inventory explains that its two-storey partitions are built in bağdadi (lath-and-plaster) technique. When Atatürk came to Samsun on 19 May 1919 he stayed in this building, then known as Mıntıka Palas; the people of Samsun presented it to him during his visit of 20–24 September 1924, and he stayed here again on his visits of 16 September 1928 and 22 November 1930.

Büyük Cami. Near Saathane Meydanı in the Kale quarter, built in 1884 by Hacı Ali of Batumi and repaired by the mother of Sultan Abdülaziz. It has twin minarets and is built of dressed stone; the inside of the dome is decorated with plant and geometric motifs, and the marble mihrab and wooden minbar stand out.

Pazar Mosque. A 14th-century Ilkhanid building, repaired in 1819, rectangular in plan with a wooden roof and a three-sided mihrab.

Hacı Hatun Mosque. Also near Saathane Meydanı, built in 1694 by Hatice Hatun, daughter of İbrahim, as a charitable work. Square in plan, single-domed, in dressed stone.

Kale Mosque. In the jewellers’ bazaar, built in 1314 in the name of the Ilkhanid governor Emir Timurtaş Pasha.

Şeyh Seyyid Kudbettin Mosque and Tomb. The inventory describes Şeyh Kudbettin as a great Islamic scholar and warrior, a grandson of Abdülkadir Geylani, who died in the month of Safar 722 AH (1322) and was buried here. The mosque and tomb adjoin each other.

Mater Dolorosa Church. In the Ulugazi quarter: a two-storey masonry building of 1846 with a triangular pediment, used as a church since 1885.

Taşhan. A two-storey rectangular han of the late 17th century on İskele Caddesi in the old grain market.

Around the province

Tekkeköy Caves. The rock-cut caves and hollows described above, with a small site museum house. They lie in Tekkeköy district east of the city, about 4 km from the present shore.

İkiztepe. The prehistoric mound northeast of Bafra; finds from the site are in the Bafra Museum.

Asarkale. A fortress near Bafra that the inventory dates to the Hellenistic period, with cistern wells, an old prison and stretches of wall. A gallery thought to have been a covered market and small carved stone figurines were also found there.

Göğceli Mosque. In Çarşamba; see our Göğceli Mosque guide.

What are the best things to do in Samsun?

• Watch birds in the Kızılırmak Delta. Two observation towers run by Ondokuz Mayıs University’s bird research centre are open to visitors, and the delta’s feral horses graze between the lakes.
• Ride the cable car to Amisos Hill. A 320 m gondola climbs from Batıpark to the tumuli on the hill, with views over the bay.
• Walk the seafront. Parks and promenades run from Atakum through the centre to Doğupark, where the Bandırma replica is moored.
• Take the waters in Havza or Ladik. The inventory describes Havza’s springs, inside the town, with five bathhouses, three of them historic, and Ladik’s spring 13 km from Havza on the Ankara road. Havza was declared a thermal tourism centre in 1989.
• Go up to the yaylas. The inventory notes that Samsun’s summer pastures are not very high and lie inland on the slopes of Akdağ, Nebyan Dağı and Kunduz Dağı. The Mezra and Sarıçiçek yaylas on Kunduz Dağı in Vezirköprü are set among forest, and three yaylas lie between 1,000 and 2,000 m on Ladik’s Akdağ.
• Walk in the forests. The inventory lists Ladik’s Akdağ, the Hacıosman Forest in Tekkeköy, Vezirköprü’s Kunduz Forest and Kocadağ among the best walking areas. Hacıosman, at the 8th km of the Samsun–Çarşamba road, is a rare alluvial forest of ash, oak, wing-nut, elm, hornbeam and maple, protected as a nature reserve since 1987.
• Swim on the west coast. The inventory singles out Yakakent, 84 km west of the centre, and Çam Gölü 7 km beyond it, where pine-covered hills rise straight behind the beach, and the wide sands of Alaçam and Bafra.

What are the best places to visit in Samsun?

Kızılırmak Delta is a Ramsar wetland of lakes, reedbeds, dunes and flooded meadows north of Bafra, where the inventory records 310 bird species.

Bandırma Ship Museum is a full-size replica of the steamer that brought Mustafa Kemal to Samsun in 1919, moored in Doğupark with the National Struggle open-air museum around it.

Amisos Hill is the headland of the ancient city, where Hellenistic tumuli can be entered and a cable car climbs from the seafront.

Göğceli Mosque is a wooden mosque in Çarşamba dated to 1206, one of the oldest surviving timber mosques in Anatolia.

Also worth your time: the Samsun Museum, the Gazi Museum, the Tekkeköy caves, Havza and the coast at Yakakent. Across the provincial borders, Amasya and Sinop are both within easy reach.

What is the traditional food of Samsun?

Bafra pide is the dish people travel for: a long, thin pide filled with meat and baked in a wood-fired oven. In Bafra it is simply called “pide”. Nokul, a rolled pastry of yeast dough filled with cheese, walnuts or poppy seeds, is the other Bafra speciality.

The coast eats fish in season, above all anchovy (hamsi) in winter, and the river deltas supply fish from the lakes. The inventory notes that most of the delta lakes are rich in fish and economically important.

Frequently asked questions about Samsun

What do the official records say about Samsun?

With its natural, historical and cultural riches and its sea, road, air and rail connections, Samsun is one of the cities with the highest tourism potential in the region. Two of Türkiye’s largest rivers, the Kızılırmak and the Yeşilırmak, flow into the Black Sea from Samsun province. Most of the natural lakes are delta lakes in Çarşamba and Bafra: the Çarşamba lakes formed when hollows in the plain filled with water, and the Bafra lakes formed in the same way, in the hollows on both banks of the Kızılırmak as it crosses the Bafra plain.

The buildings are generally two storeys above the ground floor; their outer walls are of brick (some large buildings of stone) and their inner partitions are of lath and plaster. The second floor has a projecting bay, carried in some buildings on two (sometimes four) wooden or stone posts and in others on iron rods. The hipped roof is covered with Turkish tiles and the eaves are of wood. Inside, a central hall (sofa) opens onto the other rooms. (Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Samsun Provincial Tourism Inventory, 2002)