Kapıkule is the Turkish frontier town in Edirne Province

Edirne Province

Edirne Province is the westernmost province of Turkey, located in Eastern Thrace along the Greek and Bulgarian border. The city's wealth, population and importance increased after it was declared as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire...

 on the border of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

 and Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

. Its counterpart on the Bulgarian side is Kapitan Andreevo

Kapitan Andreevo

Kapitan Andreevo is a village in Svilengrad municipality, Haskovo Province, southern Bulgaria. As of 2005 it has 948 inhabitants and the mayor is Dimitar Shiderov. Due to the proximity with Turkey, there is a major border checkpoint built there, with the Turkish side of the checkpoint being called...

. Together, they are the busiest land border crossing point

Border checkpoint

A border checkpoint is a place, generally between two countries, where travellers and/or goods are inspected. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-controlled borders often have a limited number of checkpoints where they can be crossed without legal...

 in the world and the busiest in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.

Kapıkule, situated on the highway , is also an important gateway for cargo transport to the countries east of Turkey. The Asian Highway Network

Asian Highway Network

The Asian Highway project, also known as the Great Asian Highway, is a cooperative project among countries in Asia and Europe and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific , to improve the highway systems in Asia...

 route terminates at the border. Other land border checkpoints in western Turkey are the neighboring Hamzabeyli

Hamzabeyli

Hamzabeyli is a village in Toroslar district of Mersin Province, Turkey. . At at it is situated along a tributary of Müftü River and has a small waterfall on the river. The distance to Mersin is . The population of the village is 239 as of 2010.....

 (on the ) and Dereköy (on the ) to Bulgaria and İpsala

Ipsala

İpsala is a town and district of Edirne Province in northwestern Turkey. It is the location of one of the main border checkpoints between Greece and Turkey. The Greek town opposite İpsala is Kipoi. The population is 8,332 and 30,112 ....

 (on the ) to Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

.

In the dawn of the Revolutions of 1989

Revolutions of 1989

The Revolutions of 1989 were the revolutions which overthrew the communist regimes in various Central and Eastern European countries.The events began in Poland in 1989, and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and...

, the Kapıkule border crossing saw a mass exodus of Turks

Turks in Bulgaria

The Turks in Bulgaria number 588,318 people and constitute 8.8% of those who declared their ethnic group and 8.0% of the total population according to the 2011 Bulgarian census. 605,802 persons or 9.1% of the population pointed Turkish language as their mother tongue. They are also the largest...

 fleeing the forced assimilation laws of 80’s Communist Bulgaria into Turkey.

Border checkpoint facilities

Around 400.000 vehicles and 4 million people cross annually the border in Kapıkule that makes 35% of all the vehicle and 42% of all the passenger traffic passing through the land borders of Turkey. To meet the demand resulting from growing international crossings, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) signed an agreement with the government in August 2007 to completely overhaul the facilities on Build-Operate-Transfer

Build-Operate-Transfer

Build-own-operate-transfer or build-operate-transfer is a form of project financing, wherein a private entity receives a concession from the private or public sector to finance, design, construct, and operate a facility stated in the concession contract...

 basis at a cost of 132 million TRL

Turkish lira

The Turkish lira is the currency of Turkey and the de facto independent state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The lira is subdivided into 100 kuruş...

 (US$100 million in 2007) in exchange for twenty-year operation.

When reopened in the beginning of 2009, there will be 13 passenger car and 5 truck gates for inbound, and 7 passenger car and 6 truck gates for outbound traffic. High tech

High tech

High tech is technology that is at the cutting edge: the most advanced technology currently available. It is often used in reference to micro-electronics, rather than other technologies. The adjective form is hyphenated: high-tech or high-technology...

 security equipment like smart-card controlled access

Access control

Access control refers to exerting control over who can interact with a resource. Often but not always, this involves an authority, who does the controlling. The resource can be a given building, group of buildings, or computer-based information system...

, closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television

Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....

 and x-ray

X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...

 truck cargo check systems are installed at the border area. Also commercial services are provided by fast-food restaurants, duty-free shop

Duty-free shop

Duty-free shops are retail outlets that are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country...

s, outlet store

Outlet store

An outlet store or factory outlet is a brick and mortar or online retail store in which manufacturers sell their stock directly to the public. Traditionally, a factory outlet was a store attached to a factory or warehouse, sometimes allowing customers to watch the production process like in the...

s, supermarket

Supermarket

A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...

s and banks. The 24 group of buildings, which house all kinds of service facilities, cover 15000 m² (161,458.7 sq ft) on the 289050 m² (3,111,308.3 sq ft) wide checkpoint area.