The Rabbit Islands are a group of small uninhabited Turkish

Turkey

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

 islands in the northern Aegean Sea

Aegean Sea

The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...

. They are situated approximately four nautical miles (7km) off the mainland coast of the Turkish province of Çanakkale

Çanakkale Province

Çanakkale Province is a province of Turkey, located in the northwestern part of the country. It takes its name from the town of Çanakkale.Like Istanbul, Çanakkale province has a European and an Asian part. The European part is formed by the Gallipoli peninsula, while the Asian part is largely...

, six miles (10km) north of the island of Tenedos

Tenedos

Tenedos or Bozcaada or Bozdja-Ada is a small island in the Aegean Sea, part of the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale province in Turkey. , Tenedos has a population of about 2,354. The main industries are tourism, wine production and fishing...

 (Bozcaada), and eight miles south-west of the entrance of the straights of the Dardanelles

Dardanelles

The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...

. The largest islet of the group, called Tavşan adası or Rabbit Island proper, is some 2 km long and 600 m wide. To its south are three small rocky islets called Pırasa, Orak and Yılan.

The Rabbit Islands gained some political and strategic significance in the early 20th century, because their territorial waters

Territorial waters

Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...

 are important for the control of the entrance to the Dardanelles. They were assigned to Turkey in the Treaty of Lausanne

Treaty of Lausanne

The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland on 24 July 1923, that settled the Anatolian and East Thracian parts of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty of Lausanne was ratified by the Greek government on 11 February 1924, by the Turkish government on 31...

, where they are mentioned in Article 12 along with the nearby larger islands of Tenedos and Imbros

Imbros

Imbros or Imroz, officially referred to as Gökçeada since July 29, 1970 , is an island in the Aegean Sea and the largest island of Turkey, part of Çanakkale Province. It is located at the entrance of Saros Bay and is also the westernmost point of Turkey...

(Gökçeada), as the only Aegean islands to be retained by Turkey that are more than three miles away from its mainland coast.

Today the islets are a popular spot for diving enthusiasts.