Belgrade Forest

Brief information

Belgrade Forest looks like a recreational area outside the city, but its notable feature is water. Historic reservoirs and springs have been preserved in the forest, and they made this area an important part of Istanbul's water supply: water from here flowed to the city through the Valens Aqueduct. So the reservoirs here are not just a backdrop for picnics, but a trace of old urban infrastructure.

The forest's name is connected not with Turkey, but with Belgrade: after the siege of 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent resettled thousands of Serbian prisoners of war here. The original text states directly that the Serbs maintained the reservoirs, which were replenished by forest springs. This fact changes how the place is seen: behind the green recreational zone appears a territory where forest, water, and forcibly resettled people worked for the needs of the capital.

What to notice first

It makes sense to look at Belgrade Forest through the connection between water and forest. The Büyük Bent reservoir belongs to the early Byzantine era; its dam is important not only as an engineering feature, but also as a place of present-day use, because food service establishments are located on it. The Hünkar, Kestane, and Çırçır springs stand alongside this theme: they explain why the reservoirs could be replenished within the forest at all.

In the vegetation itself, one can notice that this is a mixed deciduous forest: the sessile oak is most common, but hornbeam, Oriental birch, and Anatolian chestnut are also named alongside it. Another physical line of interpretation is the northern part of the forest, through which the western section of the motorway to the 3rd Bosphorus Bridge passes. Thus the place can be read at once as a natural area, an old water system, and a forest under pressure from the city's growth.