İmralı

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Turkish prison island in the Sea of Marmara

title: "İmralı" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["islands-of-the-sea-of-marmara", "islands-of-turkey", "prisons-in-turkey", "islands-of-bursa-province", "prison-islands", "members-of-the-delian-league", "mudanya"] description: "Turkish prison island in the Sea of Marmara" topic_path: "geography/turkey" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/İmralı" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Turkish prison island in the Sea of Marmara ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox islands"]

Field	Value
name	İmralı
image_name	İmralı Adası (cropped).jpeg
image_caption	Aerial photograph of İmralı
map_image	Imrali location.jpg
location	Sea of Marmara
pushpin_map	Turkey Marmara#Turkey
pushpin_label_position	top
pushpin_map_caption	Location of İmralı within Marmara Region##Location of İmralı within Turkey
coordinates
area_km2	9.98
coastline_km	19.4
highest_mount	Türk Tepesi
elevation_m	217
country_admin_divisions_title	Region
country_admin_divisions	Marmara region
country_admin_divisions_title_1	Province
country_admin_divisions_1	Bursa Province
country_admin_divisions_title_2	District
country_admin_divisions_2	Mudanya
country	Turkey
::

İmralı is a small Turkish prison island in the south of the Sea of Marmara, west of the Armutlu-Bozburun peninsula within Bursa Province. It measures 8 km in the north–south direction with a width of 3 km, and has an area of 9.98 km². The highest peak is Türk Tepesi at an altitude of 217 m above sea level. It is prohibited to fly over it or fish near its shores.

History

In antiquity, it was a member of the Delian League since it appears in tribute records of Athens between 434/3 and 418/7 BCE. The Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Strabo called the island Besbicus (), while in Mediaeval times, it was known as Calonymus ().

The Turkish name İmralı derives from the name of the island's conqueror, Emir Ali, one of the first Ottoman admirals. In 1308 İmralı became the first island to be conquered by the newly established Ottoman Navy. Its strategic location enabled the Ottomans to control the movement of ships in the Sea of Marmara with a naval base established on it, cutting the Byzantine Empire's connection to Bursa. The island is also referred as "Mir Ali" in Ottoman documents. The island was also a place of refuge for the runaways of the Devshirme System. For example in 1567, a group of runaways was protected and hidden by the locals of Mir Ali Island while the batches of children were being transported from the port of Dutlimanı in Bandırma.

In 1913, the island had 250 houses, a school, three monasteries, and 1,200 residents, all of whom were Greeks. The economic activity of the island's residents consisted mainly of fishing and farming onions, with most of the grown onions sold to Istanbul. There were three Greek villages on the island, engaged mostly in growing grapes, winemaking, silk production and fishing, until the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923). One well-known islander was Kimon Friar who emigrated to the United States and became a scholar and translator of Greek language poetry. The island was depopulated by the 1923 forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey and remained uninhabited for thirteen years.

In 1936, the Turkish government opened a newly semi-open prison, where the prisoners earned money by working in agriculture and fishing. Following the 1960 Turkish coup d'état, the deposed Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was imprisoned, tortured, and executed on the island. From 1999 until 2009, the now-maximum-security prison housed a single inmate, Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK. All the other prisoners on the island had been transferred to mainland Turkey. In November 2009, several other prisoners, including four members of the PKK and one TKP/ML, were transferred to a newly constructed building.

There is now a military base on the island and the surrounding area is a forbidden zone.

References

Sources

References

Mogens Herman Hansen & Thomas Heine Nielsen. (2004). "An inventory of archaic and classical poleis". [[Oxford University Press]].
[https://books.google.com/books?id=wB0QAAAAYAAJ&dq=The+geography+of+Strabo+besbicus&pg=PA395 Sir William Smith, ed. ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography'', vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1872) p. 395.]
Yılmaz, Gülay. (2015-12-01). "The Devshirme System and the Levied Children of Bursa in 1603–4". Belleten.
[http://www.acgart.gr/acg-collection/artists/F/FriK/FriK-bio.htm American College of Greece] {{webarchive. link. (13 October 2007)
Sipahi, Ali. (2016). "Convict Labor in Turkey, 1936–1953: A Capitalist Corporation in the State?". [[International Labor and Working-Class History]].
"May 27: A dark military coup in Turkey". Turkish Radio and Television Corporation.
(17 November 2009). "PKK leader Ocalan gets company in prison".
King, Laura. (1 March 1999). "Ocalan Affecting Turkish Town".

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