Çanakkale is the northwesternmost province of Türkiye, covering the Biga peninsula and a piece of Thrace, and the town itself stands on the strait at its narrowest point. The Dardanelles run 68 kilometres between the Aegean and the Sea of Marmara; between the castles of Kilitbahir and Çimenlik the water is only 1,250 metres wide, and it averages 45 to 50 metres deep. Two currents work against each other here, one running down from Marmara to the Aegean on the surface and another pushing back the other way underneath. The wind blows on 260 days of the year.
The town exists because of that narrowness. Mehmed II had a fortress built on the Asian shore in 1462 and 1463 to protect the approach to İstanbul, and the settlement grew up around it: the workers who came to build it stayed, and officials arrived to run it. The place was called Kala-i Sultaniye after the castle. In the late Ottoman period the name Çanakkale came into use alongside it and the castle itself took the name Çimenlik. The province directorate records that Çanakkale is taken to come from the potters — çanakçı — who worked in the town.
