About Bodrum

Bodrum sits on a peninsula in Turkey's Mugla province, at the entrance to the Gulf of Gokova where it meets the Aegean Sea; the wider district covers about 650 square kilometres and has some 215 kilometres of coastline, with a 2023 population of 198,335. In antiquity the town was known as Halicarnassus, capital of ancient Caria, founded by Dorian Greek settlers and later absorbed into the Persian Empire, for which it served as the seat of the local satrapy. In the 4th century BC the city was ruled by the satrap Mausolus; after his death in 353 BC, his widow and sister Artemisia II commissioned a monumental tomb so lavish that it was counted among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

History

Alexander the Great captured Halicarnassus in 334 BC during his campaign against the Persian Empire, after which the city passed through a series of Hellenistic rulers and briefly became an independent kingdom before coming under Roman control in 129 BC. Little survives of the Mausoleum today beyond its foundations and a handful of sculptures, many of them later removed to the British Museum, but its memory shaped the town's later history directly: when the Knights Hospitaller arrived in 1402, they quarried stone from the ruined tomb to build Bodrum Castle, known also as the Castle of St. Peter, which served as their stronghold until Suleiman the Magnificent forced their withdrawal to Malta in 1522.

For centuries afterward Bodrum remained a quiet town built around fishing and sponge diving, an industry that peaked between 1945 and 1965 with around 150 boats working the local waters before synthetic sponges and a diving ban brought it to an end.

The Blue Voyage and Modern Bodrum

Much of Bodrum's identity as a sailing destination traces back to a single exile. In 1925 the writer Cevat Sakir Kabaagacli, later known as the Fisherman of Halicarnassus, was banished to the then-remote town after publishing a controversial story, and fell in love with its coastline and its traditional wooden gulets. Two decades later he invited a circle of writers and intellectuals to join him sailing the coast, a trip that became known as the Mavi Yolculuk, or Blue Voyage, lending its name to the leisurely gulet cruises still sailed along this coastline today. His memory is kept alive in central Bodrum, where a bronze bust looks out over the harbour's gulets, and a small museum dedicated to him now occupies part of Bodrum Castle.

Milta Bodrum Marina, opened in 1976 as a state-run operation with room for 125 yachts, has since grown to roughly 450 berths for gulets, motor yachts and superyachts, while Yalikavak Marina on the peninsula's northern shore has developed into one of the world's leading superyacht marinas. Traditional Bodrum houses, built of local stone with white-painted walls, still line the hillsides above these harbours; a 2006 ruling by the Mugla governor made the white exterior mandatory in order to preserve the town's historic character. Bodrum Castle, home since 1962 to the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, and the 4th-century BC theatre that once seated some 10,000 spectators remain the clearest links to the ancient city. Beyond the marinas, the peninsula's coastline is scattered with quiet coves, ancient ruins and small villages that reward exploration by sea as much as by road — which is why so many visitors explore Bodrum by private gulet charter rather than staying only on land.