Gebekum

Gebekum Beach is truly unique in that it is both the longest beach of the entire Datça peninsula (as it starts at the county seat and stretches from there a full 15 kilometers) while also enjoying the status of having a substantial area of its expanse registered as being under special protection. This protected area, which comprises a 6 km long strip of sand dunes with widths ranging from 170 - 400 meters set on an east-west axis on the Mediterranean shore of the peninsula, begins approximately 10 km from the Datça county seat,.

The Gebekum fossil dunes have been built of sedimentation that formed due to the changing height of the Mediterranean during the Pliocene epoch of the Neogene period and during the Quaternary period. The pebble-like river sedimentation dating from the Pliocene Epoch lies at the base of the dunes and can extend as high as 10 metres. Through the thousands of years of its formation, various species of endemic flora have appeared and flourished on top of this base formation. To date, up to 90 kinds of different plants have been identified on this site.

These geological, biological and ecological properties lead Gebekum to rank as a six-million-year-old treasure inherited from nature, a treasure that belongs not only to the Datça peninsula or to Turkey itself, but rather to our entire planet and, as such, should absolutely be preserved.