Kocaeli Province

Kocaeli Province is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey, and one of only three Turkish provinces whose official name differs from the name of its capital, which is Izmit; for that reason Izmit is sometimes itself called Kocaeli. The province covers about 3,397 square kilometres and had a population of 2,102,907 in 2023. It is the successor of the Ottoman-era Sanjak of Kocaeli. Its largest towns are Izmit and Gebze. The province sits at the easternmost end of the Sea of Marmara around the Gulf of Izmit, and it borders Istanbul Province and the Marmara Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north, Sakarya Province to the east, Bursa Province to the south and Yalova Province to the southwest. The metropolitan area of Istanbul extends to the Kocaeli-Istanbul provincial border. The size and natural conditions of the Bay of Izmit allow extensive port facilities, including the Golcuk Naval Base, and the province is called the industrial capital of Turkey. It has an airport, Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station, used for military and civilian transport, and three universities: Kocaeli University, Gebze Technical University and Kocaeli Health and Technology University. Its traffic code is 41.