Hamsilos Tabiat Parkı

The fairly smooth coasts of the Black Sea are interrupted by protrusions formed by important capes such as the Sinop Peninsula. The Sinop Peninsula consists of two extensions (peninsulas): İnceburun, located at the northernmost tip of Turkey, and Boztepe (Ada), where Sinop city center is located. Hamsilos Nature Park is located on the İnceburun extension.

Hamsilos Fjord

Hamsilos Nature Park is a natural wonder area that brings together two uniquely beautiful natural harbors, Hamsilos Bay (also popularly referred to as Hamsaroz), which is one of the finest examples of the ria-type coastal formation in the Black Sea where the sea enters inland like a river and gives the park its name, and Akliman Bay, along with marsh-dune-sea and forest areas and rich biodiversity, and it is 14 kilometers from the city center.

Hamsilos Fjord

At the same time also a 1st Degree Natural Protected Area, Hamsilos Nature Park is Turkey's 22nd Nature Park and one of Sinop's most special areas. Apart from İnceburun and Sarıkum Lake, which are among Sinop’s other attractions, it is a place that many visitors coming to the city definitely stop by.

Hamsilos Fjord

Akliman Recreation Area, which was registered as a recreation area in 1987 and, in addition to its landscape beauty, includes day-use facilities that allow these beauties to be enjoyed recreationally, is another attraction point of the Nature Park. With the declaration of the area as a Nature Park, its recreation area status was removed, it was included within the Nature Park boundaries, and it was named Akliman Day-Use Area.

Akliman Day-Use Area

This locality is also a rich area in terms of cultural resource values, with ceramic fragments in the harbor dated to the archaeological period, the graves of ancient sailors, finds on the seashore said by local people to be fossil remains although not based on official sources, and Kadınlar Hamamı, believed to be the place where Amazon women bathed.

Akliman Day-Use Area

The Hamsilos locality covers Hamsilos Harbor, a natural harbor stated in many publications to be a fjord based on its resemblance to the fjords in Scandinavia, and its immediate surroundings. Although Hamsilos resembles a fjord in appearance, it is actually a landform formed when the more deeply carved sections of the Deveci Stream Valley were drowned as a result of the sea level rising and turned into a harbor. This formation, referred to as Hamsilos Fjord, offers its visitors a unique and captivating richness of visual landscape where the sea, bay, and green are together.

Akliman Day-Use Area

The vegetation of the Nature Park, diversified under the influence of many factors, is also home to rich biodiversity. In the area, there are 6 endemic and many protected plant species considered worthy of conservation within various threat category classes, such as wild carnation (Dıanthus carmelitarum), Kastamonu onion (Allium kastambulense), thistle (Cirsium pseudopersonata sp.pseudopersonata), goat's beard (Tragopogon aureus), spurge (Euphorbia cardiophylla), and Sinop crocus (Crocusspeciosusssp.xantholaimos). In terms of birds as well, it is an area characterized by wildlife, and it is preferred by 150 bird species for sheltering, stopping over, or migration.

Source: Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

Photographs: North Anatolian Development Agency (use without permission from the Agency is prohibited).

Places to Visit in Sinop Address: It is 12 km from the city center. Akliman Mevkii/SİNOP