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Underground: the mining town of Zonguldak
Photo: Wiki leylek / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Editor's route Dark tourism

Underground: the mining town of Zonguldak

Half a day in Türkiye's hard-coal capital: the mining museum and a real mine gallery, then the miners' monument in the city centre. To understand the labour and the cost of mining.

DurationHalf day
Walk≈ 1 km
Stop2
Tickets0
AP

AnatoliaPass editorsDark tourism and industrial heritage collection · last checked 23 October 2026

Respect guidelines
  • You can only enter the gallery with a staff guide and with the helmet and equipment provided.
  • If you have claustrophobia or heart or breathing problems, talk to the staff before entering the gallery.
  • Be respectful in the sections and at the monument that remember those who died in mining accidents.

Dark tourism means visiting places where people have confronted suffering, loss and hard labour: prisons, dungeons, abandoned and submerged towns, underground shelters, and the factories and mines that paid the price of industry. Every place in this collection can be visited legally and with permission; there are no routes into abandoned private property or building sites, or routes built around watching neighbourhoods where people live. Battlefields, martyrs' cemeteries and memorial sites are in the “Remembrance and mourning” collection. Please respect the story of the places you visit.

Make your own version
  1. 1

    Zonguldak Mining Museum

    Start: Çınartepe, Bülent Ecevit Caddesi; ≈ 4 km south of the city centre (by bus, taxi or car; free parking in the grounds) · stay 150 min

    Opened on 9 December 2016, the museum displays tools used in the coalfield, models of pits, historic maps and simulations. The roughly 700-metre gallery, alongside the training facilities of the Turkish Hard Coal Enterprise (TTK), lets you see inside a coal mine.

    Zonguldak Mining Museum
    Photo: Dosseman / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

    According to the museum's website, it is open 08.30–18.00 on weekdays and 10.00–18.00 at weekends, closed on Mondays. Sources disagree on prices; call the museum before you go. (Photo: remains of old TTK coal facilities in Zonguldak, 2007; no freely licensed photo of the museum itself could be found.)

  2. 2

    Miners' Monument

    ≈ 10 min by taxi (3 km) to the city centre · stay 30 min

    A monument in the city centre showing a huge block of coal carried by hands; it is a reminder of the weight of mining and of those who lost their lives in the pits. Coal is held to have been discovered in the coalfield by Uzun Mehmet in 1829, and 8 November is marked every year as Coal Day; Uzun Mehmet's monument is in Karadeniz Ereğli, in the Kestaneci neighbourhood.

    Miners' Monument
    Photo: Wiki leylek / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0

    Location approximate (from the photo's location); the monument stands in the middle of a junction, so watch out for traffic.

One more day? Bursa.

Outside Istanbul

≈ 2 h 15 min · fast ferry + bus · Day trip

Why here: The first Ottoman capital. The Green Mosque, the Grand Mosque and Koza Han make an easy day trip; we suggest it if you are staying in Istanbul for more than four days. Not part of this route.

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