The Geography of the City

 The Gölcük city is founded in a node in the south coast of the İzmit Gulf and toward to the east end of the Gulf of which wideness is about 2 kilometers. The city, together with its surrounding vineyards and orchards reaches over to the north side of the Mountains Samanlı.
 The administrative borders of the city are, İhsaniye Municipality in east, Değirmendere Municipality in west and Şirinköy, Örcün, Saraylı villages in south. And the İzmit Gulf is on the north side of the city. This Gulf has great advantages for marine transportation and security. Since the Gulf is a natural harbor, it has been a tradition to build shipyards frrom ancient times until Byzantium, Otoman and modern Republic era. This caused Gölcük to develop as a  modern city and the foundation of Gölcük Shipyard in 1927. The first nucleus of the city was composed of the workers´ apartments built around the military establishments.
 After the military shipyard was founded in the City for its geographical convenience, Gölcük had a rapid urbanization process and while its population was about 5000 in 1940 by the year 2005 its population was about 108.000.000 –in spite of the 17th august earthquake which was called as the disaster of the century- and Gölcük became a rapidly growing city.
 The open land of the city is about 20.000 hectare.