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Istanbul [b] is the largest city in Turkey, straddling the Bosporus Strait, the boundary between Europe and Asia.It is considered the country's economic, cultural and historic capital.
The large city centre (Greek: Κέντρο της Αθήνας, romanized: Kéntro tis Athínas) of the Greek capital falls directly within the Municipality of Athens (Greek: Δήμος Αθηναίων, romanized: Dímos Athinaíon), which is the largest in population size in Greece and forms the core of the Athens urban area, followed by the ...
The city, known alternatively in Ottoman Turkish as Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (قسطنطينيه after the Arabic form al-Qusṭanṭīniyyah القسطنطينية) or Istanbul, while its Christian minorities continued to call it Constantinople, as did people writing in French, English, and other European languages, was the capital of the Ottoman ...
Map of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), designed in 1422 by Florentine cartographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti. This is the oldest surviving map of the city, and the only surviving map that predates the Turkish conquest of 1453. The Bosporus is visible along the right-hand side of the map, wrapping vertically around the historic city.
After that, as part of the Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in Ottoman times and the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. [27] [28] [29] [30]
CITY GUIDES: The centre of Turkish history, cutting-edge art and affordable and authentic cuisine, Istanbul is rich with mini-neighbourhoods to explore. Vicky Smith gives a steer on where to start
The origins of Byzantium are shrouded in legend. Tradition says that Byzas of Megara (a city-state near Athens) founded the city when he sailed northeast across the Aegean Sea. The date is usually given as 667 BC on the authority of Herodotus, who states the city was founded 17 years after Chalcedon.
İstanbul originally was not used for the entire city, instead the name referred to the core of Istanbul—the walled city. [18] İstanbul was the common name for the city in normal speech in Turkish even before the conquest of 1453, [citation needed] but in official use by the Ottoman authorities other names, such as Kostantiniyye, were ...