Danamandıra nature park covers 381 hectares in the Silivri district of İstanbul and was declared on 16 December 2015. It sits between two seas: 27 kilometres from the Marmara shore and 20 from the Black Sea.
Silivri is 67 kilometres west of İstanbul on the D-100 road, with Çorlu and Marmara Ereğlisi in Tekirdağ to the west, Büyükçekmece to the east and Çatalca to the north. The park lies south-west of the Danamandıra quarter, in the north of the district. It has capacity for 6,000 visitors and 150 vehicles.
State forest rings the park on every side. Visitors coming by public transport can use the İETT buses that leave from the centre of Silivri, but the Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks is explicit that there is no public transport running between the park and the Danamandıra quarter itself.
Two lakes inside the park, the Büyükkokmuş and the Küçükkokmuş, are resting and breeding grounds for migratory birds, and they are the strongest reason to come. The woodland is dominated by deciduous oak; the wetlands are covered by a vegetation of reed, sedge, rush, iris and water lily, and the wetland margin, where the oaks open out, is meadow made up largely of grasses. Hungarian oak, hawthorn, cherry laurel, pear, alder, silver lime, hazel, black pine, plane, chestnut, elm, hackberry, willow, oleaster, cornel, dog rose, heather, bay, barberry, elder, tamarisk, fern, white water lily, water violet, yarrow, papyrus, reed and fennel are among the forest and water plants listed. At the lake edges only one amphibian was found, the marsh frog, and the lakes were found to hold two fish species, catfish and carp. Red fox, grey wolf, golden jackal, wild boar, roe deer, squirrel, hare, tortoise, snakes and lizards are recorded, along with cormorant, bittern, heron, stork, duck, woodcock, hobby, buzzard, collared dove, hoopoe, woodpecker, swallow, robin, nightingale, blackbird, chiffchaff, warbler, tit, starling, jay, magpie and chaffinch.
The facilities are those of a day-use park: toilets, a prayer room, a wooden platform, a wooden jetty, picnic units, day-use recreation areas and viewing points. The Directorate General of Nature Conservation and National Parks says the woods and lakes draw large numbers of visitors in spring and summer and are used mainly for picnicking, and that beyond birdwatching the ground carries walking, camping and photo safari; botanical tours and water-lily festivals are held here.
- Designated
- 16.12.2015
Entry fee
- Marmara group 2 · category 1 · Per person
- 75 ₺
Visiting hours
- Visiting hours
- 08:00 - 20:00
When to go
- Climate
- Across İstanbul as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in January to 24.7 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (99 mm) and lightest in July (22 mm). Long-term means for 1950-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
