Atatürk Airport National Garden — Türkiye's Largest Urban Park, Opened Amid a Cancelled Tender Ruling

Türkiye's Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change converted part of the decommissioned Atatürk Airport in Istanbul into a 1,215,000 m2 (about 121.5-hectare) "national garden," which opened on 1 November 2025 as the country's largest city park. The site was planted with more than 20,000 trees and over 1,000,000 m2 of lawn, and includes a 2.5-kilometre artificial waterway, nine entrances and seven symbolic hills representing Istanbul's districts; officials say it is designed to shelter up to 165,000 people during emergencies.
The park is one of 15 national gardens the Ministry has opened in Istanbul, with a further 27 under construction nationally toward a stated target of 100 million square metres of new green space by 2028.
The project has also drawn sustained legal and political criticism. Turkey's Council of State (Danıştay) issued a ruling reported in February 2024 that cancelled the Atatürk Airport garden's tender/authorisation on procedural grounds, but construction continued regardless. More broadly, independent reporting found the Housing Development Administration (TOKİ) spent roughly 213.9 million Turkish lira (about US$6.6 million) on just 11 national-garden tenders between January and May 2024 alone, and opposition figures and environmental groups have criticised the programme's tender processes and, in cases such as the Lake Salda national garden, its lack of a completed environmental impact assessment before construction began.
As a designed park of lawns, hardscape and an artificial waterway rather than restored habitat, the site's contribution to biodiversity or ecosystem carbon storage is not evidenced in available sources; its documented value lies chiefly in public green space, urban cooling potential and emergency-shelter capacity, offset by real governance concerns.

Read the full analysis: https://www.dailysabah.com/turkiye/istanbul/istanbuls-green-oasis-turkiyes-largest-public-garden-set-for-opening