🇹🇷4K WELCOME TO ISTANBUL | THE PLACE WHERE EAST MEETS WEST | WALKING TOUR AUGUST 2024 💃🏼🔥❤️

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 city has a population of over 15 million residents, comprising 19% of the population of Turkey,[3] and is the most populous city in Europe[c] and the world's fifteenth-largest city.

The city was founded as Byzantium in the 7th century BCE by Greek settlers from Megara.[9] In 330 CE, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great made it his imperial capital, renaming it first as New Rome (Ancient Greek: Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Rhomē; Latin: Nova Roma)[10] and then finally as Constantinople (Constantinopolis) after himself.[10][11] In 1930, the city's name was officially changed to Istanbul, the Turkish rendering of εἰς τὴν Πόλιν eis tḕn Pólin 'to the City', the appellation Greek speakers used since the 11th century to colloquially refer to the city.[10]
The city served as an imperial capital for almost 1600 years: during the Byzantine (330–1204), Latin (1204–1261), late Byzantine (1261–1453), and Ottoman (1453–1922) empires.[12] The city grew in size and influence, eventually becoming a beacon of the Silk Road and one of the most important cities in history. The city played a key role in the advancement of Christianity during Roman/Byzantine times, hosting four of the first seven ecumenical councils before its transformation to an Islamic stronghold following the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 CE—especially after becoming the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1517.[13] In 1923, after the Turkish War of Independence, Ankara replaced the city as the capital of the newly formed Republic of Turkey.
Istanbul was the 2010 European Capital of Culture. The city has surpassed London and Dubai to become the most visited city in the world, with more than 20 million foreign visitors in 2023.[14] The historic centre of Istanbul is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city hosts the headquarters of numerous Turkish companies, accounting for more than thirty percent of the country's economy.[15][16]

The first known name of the city is Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον Byzántion), the name given to it at its foundation by Megarian colonists around 657 BCE.[10][18] Megarian colonists claimed a direct line back to the founders of the city, Byzas, the son of the god Poseidon and the nymph Ceroëssa.[18] Modern excavations have raised the possibility that the name Byzantium might reflect the sites of native Thracian settlements that preceded the fully-fledged town.[19] Constantinople comes from the Latin name Constantinus, after Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who refounded the city in 324 CE.[18] Constantinople remained the most common name for the city in the West until the 1930s, when Turkish authorities began to press for the use of "Istanbul" (Turkish: İstanbul[d]) in foreign languages. Ḳosṭanṭīnīye (Ottoman Turkish: قسطنطينيه) and İstanbul were the names used alternatively by the Ottomans during their rule.[20]
The name İstanbul (Ottoman Turkish: استانبول) (Turkish pronunciation: [isˈtanbuɫ] ⓘ colloquial Turkish pronunciation: [ɯsˈtambuɫ]) is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν (Greek pronunciation: [is tim ˈbolin]), literally 'to the city'[21] and is how Constantinople was referred to by the local Greeks. This reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was also reflected by its nickname Dersaadet (Ottoman Turkish: درساعدت) meaning the 'Gate to Prosperity' in Ottoman Turkish.[22] An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from "Constantinople", with the first and third syllables dropped.[18] Some Ottoman sources of the 17th century, such as Evliya Çelebi, describe it as the common Turkish name of the time; between the late 17th and late 18th centuries, it was also in official use. The first use of the word Islambol (Ottoman Turkish: اسلامبول) on coinage was in 1730 during the reign of Sultan Mahmud I.[23] In modern Turkish, the name is written as İstanbul, with a dotted İ, as the Turkish alphabet distinguishes between a dotted and dotless I. In English the stress is on the first or last syllable, but in Turkish it is on the second syllable (-tan-).[24] A person from the city is an İstanbullu (plural İstanbullular); Istanbulite is used in English.[25]
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