Lavender Island

Created as a peninsula on the Çekerek Süreyyabey Dam, Çekerek Lavender Island was established by the Çekerek Municipality as part of the 'Lavender Island Project,' launched in 2019 through the initiative of MP Fuat Oktay. The municipality planted 250,000 lavender seedlings across a single 1,500-decare plot, giving the site its distinction as the world's largest single-plot lavender garden. Located about 5-6 km from Çekerek district centre, the island offers visitors wooden viewing terraces, gazebos, promenades, a pier, a cafeteria, children's playgrounds and a hot-air-balloon launch site. Having quickly become one of Turkey's most talked-about nature-tourism destinations, the island turns a vivid purple when the lavender blooms, typically in July, making it a favourite stop for nature photographers and day-trippers alike. The project was conceived to transform Çekerek, a district at the heart of Central Anatolia, into a regional tourism hub; the blue of the reservoir combined with the purple of the lavender fields creates one of Yozgat's most distinctive landscapes.