Sinop sits on a peninsula, and its walls do the obvious thing: they close off the narrowest part of the neck entirely. The north wall runs 880 metres, the east 500, the south 400 and the west 270. The walls are eight metres thick and vary between 25 and 30 metres high, which is why they remain the first thing you notice about the town.
Who built them first is not settled. The provincial governorate offers two possibilities — the Gasga, the local people living in the region around 2000 BC, or the settlers who came from Miletos in the eighth century BC and founded the colony at Sinop. The walls were repaired after the Cimmerian invasion in the seventh century. The city passed to Persian rule in the sixth century and became an important centre of the kingdom of Pontos, and it was Mithridates IV who repaired and extended the walls to the lines they follow today. Rome and Byzantium kept them in repair continuously. The Seljuks took the city in 1214 and again in 1261, repaired the walls once more and cut an inner castle out of the main circuit to strengthen the defence — a steep wall running down from the north of the main fortress to its south, enclosing the area that later held the historic prison.
Evliya Çelebi lists six gates: Kumkapı, Tersanekapı, Yenice, Tabakhane, Lonca and Denizkapı. Of these Kumkapı and the Lonca gate are still standing. The north walls have been badly worn by the sea.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Sinop as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.8 °C in February to 23.4 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (92 mm) and lightest in July (34 mm). Long-term means for 1936-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
Visiting hours
- Hours
- 08:00 - 17:00, closed Tuesday
