Rumeli Hisarı stands on the Bosphorus in Sarıyer, İstanbul, at the narrowest point of the strait — 698 metres — directly opposite Anadolu Hisarı on the Asian side, and it gives its name to the quarter around it. Mehmed II had it built in 1452, before the conquest of İstanbul, to block attacks and cut off help that might come down the Bosphorus from the Black Sea. It is the fortress you visit of the Hisarlar Museum, which also takes in Anadoluhisarı and Yedikule.
It has gone by other names too: Yenicehisar, Boğazkesen Hisarı, Yenikale, Başkesen Hisarı and Kara Kale. In Mehmed's own deeds of endowment it appears as Kulle-i Cedide, in the history of Neşri as Yenice Hisar, and in the histories of Kemalpaşazade, Aşıkpaşazade and Nişancı as Boğazkesen Hisarı.
Building began at the end of March 1452 and was finished in a matter of months. Mehmed came from Edirne and ordered the foundations laid on the slope of the hill formerly known as Fonea, naming it Başkesen. He assigned the three towers by the water to his pashas, who had them built at their own expense, and took on the other towers and the rest of the work himself. The timber came from İzmit and Karadeniz Ereğli, the stone from Anatolia, and spolia were taken from ruined Byzantine buildings nearby.
The three great towers, counted among the largest fortress towers in the world, are joined by the walls and named for the pashas who oversaw them: Saruca Paşa, Zağanos Paşa and Halil Paşa. Counting the ground floors, the Saruca Paşa and Halil Paşa towers have nine storeys and the Zağanos Paşa tower eight. The Saruca Paşa tower is 23.30 metres across, with walls seven metres thick, and stands twenty-eight metres high; the Zağanos Paşa tower is 26.70 metres across with walls 5.70 metres thick and stands twenty-one metres; the Halil Paşa tower is 23.30 metres across with walls 6.5 metres thick and stands twenty-two metres. A smaller tower is called the Little Zağanos. There are four main gates — the Mountain Gate, the Dizdar Gate, the Hisarpece Gate and the Flood Gate — and a secondary one, the Cemetery Gate.
After the conquest the fortress remained a garrison for a time, and the Saruca Paşa tower later served as a prison. It was badly damaged in the great İstanbul earthquake of 1509 but repaired at once; its wooden parts were destroyed in a fire in 1746, and it was repaired again in the reign of Selim III. After the eighteenth century it lost its military character entirely, and in 1876–77 forty-six households were recorded within the fortress and around its edge.
Much of the museum's display is set out in the garden and the open air: cannon, cannonballs, terracotta and stone pieces, and a length of the chain said to have closed the Golden Horn. An open-air theatre was added during restoration, and in summer the Ministry allocates the fortress to various institutions for events. İETT buses run there from Beşiktaş.
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).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 09:00 - 18:30, closed Monday
Getting there
- Access
- Reached by İETT buses from Beşiktaş.
