Bilecik, Turkey — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Bilecik known for?

Bilecik touches Bursa to the west, Kocaeli and Sakarya to the north, Bolu to the east, Eskişehir to the southeast and Kütahya to the south, which leaves it hemmed in on every side by larger neighbours. The province is quartered. Most of it falls within the Marmara region, while parts of Gölpazarı and Söğüt belong to the Black Sea Region and slivers of Bozüyük reach into Central Anatolia and the Aegean.

Where is Bilecik?

Bilecik is a province of edges. Bursa lies to the west, Kocaeli and Sakarya to the north, Bolu to the east, Eskişehir to the southeast and Kütahya to the south, so the province is defined as much by what surrounds it as by anything held inside. The count runs to six.

That is an unusual number for ground of this extent, and it puts Bilecik at the junction where several different parts of the country come together. The regional lines cut across it. Most of Bilecik lies inside the Marmara region, but the eastern parts of Gölpazarı and Söğüt, together with the districts of İnhisar and Yenipazar, are counted into the Black Sea Region instead.

Bozüyük is split too. Smaller southeastern pieces of Bozüyük and Söğüt sit in Central Anatolia, while a southwestern corner of Bozüyük belongs to the Aegean Region, which leaves one province with a share of four. Four regions, one province.

That is the fact worth carrying away from any map of Bilecik, because it explains why the country changes character between one district and the next rather than staying of a piece. Bursa and Eskişehir are the large near names. Kütahya closes the province from the south.

What is Bilecik like?

Turkish is what is spoken across the province. From the seat at Bilecik out to the district centres of Söğüt, Gölpazarı, İnhisar, Yenipazar and Bozüyük, it is the working language of every office, market and timetable in use. The districts differ from each other.

A province divided among the Marmara region, the Black Sea Region, Central Anatolia and the Aegean does not hold one settled character, and the contrast between its corners is what a visitor notices first. Bozüyük looks south. Its southeastern and southwestern edges belong to Central Anatolia and the Aegean Region respectively, and Kütahya lies immediately beyond, which gives that end of the province an orientation quite unlike the north.

Gölpazarı and Söğüt look the other way. Their eastern ground falls in the Black Sea Region, in company with İnhisar and Yenipazar, so that side of Bilecik runs with Bolu rather than with Bursa. The province borrows from all of them.

Bilecik sits where Bursa, Kocaeli, Sakarya, Bolu, Eskişehir and Kütahya all reach their limits, and ground surrounded on that scale takes something from each of its neighbours rather than holding to a single tradition. Turkish holds it together.

What is the history of Bilecik?

Bilecik carries the name of its seat. Under it sit the districts of Bozüyük, Söğüt, Gölpazarı, İnhisar and Yenipazar, each with a name of its own and each assigned to one of the four regions the province is shared between. The split is the standing curiosity.

Turkey's regional scheme and its provincial one do not agree here, and Bilecik ends up divided among Marmara, the Black Sea Region, Central Anatolia and the Aegean rather than sitting wholly within any of them.

What is the climate of Bilecik?

Four regions meet inside one province. Weather in Bilecik is a border case for exactly that reason, with the Marmara ground facing one way, the Black Sea Region districts of Gölpazarı and Söğüt facing another, and the Central Anatolian corner of Bozüyük another again. No single pattern covers it.

What a traveller finds around Bozüyük, at the reach toward Kütahya, need not match what İnhisar and Yenipazar get on the far side.

How do you get to Bilecik?

Bursa is the nearest large approach. The province is entered overland from Bursa on the west, from Kocaeli and Sakarya on the north, from Bolu on the east and from Eskişehir or Kütahya on the south, which is as many ways in as ground of this extent can claim. Bozüyük takes the southern traffic.

Anything arriving from Eskişehir or Kütahya crosses that district first, while Gölpazarı and Söğüt sit on the side of Bilecik where the Black Sea Region begins.