Küçükçekmece is a suburb of Istanbul, Turkey 23 km west of the city, on the European shore of the sea of Marmara. Küçükçekmece lies on the European shore of the Sea of Marmara, on a lagoon named Lake Küçükçekmece. Across the inlet is the district of Avcılar and the campus of Istanbul University. The inlet is connected to the Sea of Marmara by a very narrow channel so the water is not salty. The streams running into the inlet now carry industrial waste and the inlet is highly polluted but efforts are being made to clean it. There used to be wildlife and many kinds of birds and efforts to get the wildlife back are taking effect slowly.

The population of Küçükçekmece is growing fast and it is acquiring schools, supermarkets, shopping centres and other facilities. However, in most parts of Küçükçekmece this is very much a poor, working-class neighbourhood, with much crime in dirty streets where men gather in badly lit cafes to play cards, drink tea and smoke cheap cigarettes. Most of the housing is illegally built gecekondu. Most of the people are recent migrants from Anatolia, increasingly from the troubled south-east. Traditionally there has been much left-wing sympathy, but recently it seems changing to the central right-wing.

At sunset after walking by the lakeside, young people will find somewhere to sit, and they will drink Turkish tea, that is one of the bests Küçükçekmece offers.