Last modified: 2020-09-20 by ivan sache
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![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-34-bu.png)
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-34-bu.jpg)
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-34-b1.png)
Flag of Büyükçekmece, horizontal and vertical version - Images by Tomislav Šipek, 12 November 2018
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The municipality of Büyükçekmece (237,185 inhabitants in 2018; 36,000 ha) is located in the European side of İstanbul, on the Sea of Marmara.
Ivan Sache, 4 December 2017
The flag of Büyükçekmece (photo, photo), also used vertically (photo, photo), is white with the district's emblem.
The emblem of the municipality features the Büyükçekmece Bridge. The bridge was built at a distance of 40 km to İstanbul, between the Sea of Marmara and Lake Büyükçekmece. Its building was started in 1566 by Sinan (1489-1588), Chief Architect of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566). Sinan recalls in his autobiography that the sultan ordered him to build "immediately" a bridge after having noticed that the old, "inadequately built" bridge had collapsed. Crossing the lake was critical for the Ottoman troops heading to the European battlefields. The building of the bridge was achieved in 1567, under Selim II (1524-1574).
Sinan self-praised his work as follows:
This bridge, unique, spectacular and heavenly,
Arches elegantly, as do the eyebrows of a beauty.
Its feet are low, deep down in the ground,
Its arches are high, up high in the sky.
Each arch is like a vault of heaven without its legs,
And turns into the letter "nun" in the water.
And how can it not be so modest when,
Such a great number of people walk over it.
Sinan's bridge was also praised by Ottoman and foreign visitors. Sai Mustafa Çelebi (d. 1595), Sinan's biographer, wrote: "The grand bridge Sinan built in Büyükçekmece is an image of the milky-way in the sky." Evliya Çelebi (1611-1682) stated that the bridge was "very durable" and that "each arch resembled a rainbow".
This whole bridge (635.57 m in length; 7.17 m in width, so that two caravans from opposite directions could pass while side-by-side) is formed by adding four separate bridges of different sizes and lengths to each other through artificial islands. According to Orhan Bozkurt, the bridge was built from limestone that contains nummulites from the middle Eocene period; this type of limestone covers large areas around Hadımköy.
According to Erdem Yücel, the bridge is of the non-equant serial arched type. The arches in the middle are the highest, the ones next to these get lower gradually in conformity with the decline of the bridge. Arch forms are generally sharp and built out of 2 meter-long stones; thin, regular stones are used in the inner surfaces. Lime mortar has not been used during construction, the stones were fixed to each other via molten lead. As the arch width increases, leg width increases as well. The arches of the 1st and 4th bridges are not sharp because of the history and observation houses are placed on these two. These single structures may have been used for purposes of resting, elevated from the bridge road in the shape of a terrace.
[Municipal website]
The white tower in the background of the emblem is the Endem TV Tower (236 m in height), built between 1998 and 2003 (technical specifications).
Tomislav Šipek & Ivan Sache, 12 November 2018
Former flag of Büyükçekmece
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-34-bu.gif)
Former flag of Büyükçekmece - Image by Jens Pattke, 17 November 2012
The former flag of Büyükçekmece (photo) was white with a very similar emblem.
Tomislav Šipek, 21 February 2016
![[Flag]](../images/t/tr-34@bu.gif)
Flag of Büyükçekmece Tepecikspor - Image by Ivan Sache, 9 November 2016
Büyükçekmece Tepecikspor (Büyükçekmece Tepecik Spor Kulübü) was established in 1988.
The flag of Büyükçekmece Tepecikspor (photo,
photo, photo) is white with the club's emblem in the center and the club's name beneath, written in green capital letters on two lines, the lower in bigger letters.
Ivan Sache, 9 November 2016
