3D print the Maiden's Tower
A free, printable model of the Maiden's Tower, with its domed lantern and crenellated walls on its small islet, and the open water around it in Istanbul, generated from real map data in your browser.
Free, in your browser. Exports a slicer-ready 3MF.
About the Maiden's Tower
The Maiden's Tower, called Kız Kulesi in Turkish, rises from a small islet at the Bosphorus's southern entrance, 200 m (220 yd) away from the Üsküdar coast in Istanbul. Since the Byzantine period it has also been known as Leander's Tower. From 1966 to 1981 it was pictured on the back of the Turkish 10 lira banknote.
Emperor Alexius Comnenus of Byzantium raised a wooden tower here in 1110, shielded by a stone wall, and an iron chain stretched from it to another tower on the European shore, in Constantinople's Mangana quarter. The 1509 earthquake wrecked the tower. It was rebuilt, then burned down in 1721. It was reconstructed in more durable stone in 1763, used as a quarantine station from 1829, and restored by Sultan Mahmud II in 1832. After the earthquake and tsunami of August 17, 1999, steel supports were added to strengthen it.
There are several stories about the name. In one, a prophecy foretold that a venomous snake would kill the emperor's beloved daughter on her eighteenth birthday. To keep her from snakes, the emperor built a tower in the Bosphorus and shut her inside; an asp hidden among a gift of fruit bit her anyway, which is how it got the name Maiden's Tower. The name Leander's Tower borrows from the myth of Hero and Leander, a Greek tale in which Leander swam across the Hellespont each night to reach Hero, who lit a lamp on top of her tower to show him the way.
How it prints
Make this print opens the generator on a 600 m square around the landmark. Buildings print at close to true scale, so the landmark grows with the print size.
| Print size | Landmark height | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| 160 mm default | 7 mm | 1:3,750 |
| 200 mm | 9 mm | 1:3,000 |
| 256 mm | 11 mm | 1:2,344 |
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North
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East
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South
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West
- Tiny finial and balcony railing
- A slim finial tops the dome, and a fine railing rings the balcony below it. Printing slowly helps the finial, and Print friendly adapts the railing to the print scale.
- Battlements on a small islet
- The islet is a small platform with crenellated walls and low roofs. A larger print size keeps these small notches, and layers of 0.12 to 0.16 mm keep them crisp.
- One piece with the ground
- The Maiden's Tower is joined to the ground in the exported file, and the four-side check found no floating parts, so nothing needs gluing.
- Pick the detail for your nozzle
- In the Buildings settings, set Landmark detail to Print friendly to adapt thin parts and small details to the print scale. Full detail keeps every modeled feature, for larger prints or a finer nozzle.
- Colors
- Buildings, roads, water and ground arrive as separate filament slots in the 3MF. The Maiden's Tower takes the building color.
- File format
- You get a 3MF for Bambu Studio, OrcaSlicer or PrusaSlicer. Any of them can save it as STL if you need one.
About this model
The Maiden's Tower is one of more than 2,300 landmark models in Mini Skyline. They are made with AI, and each one is checked from four sides in its real surroundings before release. Everything around it is built from OpenStreetMap and Overture map data. If you would rather print the shape from map data, turn off Landmark models in the Buildings settings.
Common questions
Is there a Maiden's Tower STL I can download?
Mini Skyline builds the file for you in your browser and exports 3MF, which every major slicer opens. If you need an STL, open the 3MF in your slicer and export it from there.
How big can I print it?
Any print size from 40 mm across. The Maiden's Tower grows with the print: about 7 mm tall on the default 160 mm print. For a model larger than your printer bed, Project Mode splits the area into tiles.
Is it free?
Yes. Generation runs in your browser, with no account and nothing behind a paywall.
