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Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul -the City that ‘with One Key Opens and Cioses Two Worlds, Two Seas...
Istanbul is one of the world’s great cities. Its unique setting, at the point where Europe faces Asia across the turquoise ribbon of the Bosphorus, makes it the only city in the world to bridge two continents. Here, where the waters of the Black Sea blend into the Aegean, east and west merge and mingle in the cultural melting-pot of Turkey’s largest metropolis.
Istanbul is the only city in the world that has been the capital of both an Islamic and a Christian empire. As Constantinople, jewel of the Byzantine Empire, it was for over 1 .000 years the most important city in Christendom. As Istanbul it was the seat of the Ottoman sultans, rulers of a 500 year Islamic empire that stretched from the Black Sea and the Balkans to Arabia and Algeria.
It owes its historic importance to its strategic location on the Bosphorus. From here the city could control not onyy the shipping that passed through the strait on the important trade route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, but also the overland traffic from Europe into Asia Minor, which used the narrow strait as a crossing point. In the words of the l6th- century French traveller Pierre Gilles, ‘The Bosphorus with one key opens and closes two worlds, two seas’. That strategic advantage is no less important today than it was 2,500 years ago, when a band of Greeks first founded the city of Byzantium on this very spot. Ankara may be the official capital of modern Turkey, but Istanbul is the country’s largest city and busiest port, producing over one-third of Turkey’s manufacturing output. The Bosphorus is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and the overland traffic is now carried by two of the world’s longest suspension bridges.
The city has long since spread beyond the 5th-century Byzantine walls built by Emperor Theodosius II, and now sprawls for miles along the shores of the Sea of Marmara on both the European and Asian sides. Back in 1507 this was the world’s largest city, with a population of 1.2 million. That figure has now passed 13 million and is still growing, swollen by a steady influx of people from rural areas looking for work (more than half of the population was born in the provinces). These new arrivals created a series of shantytowns around the edge of the city. Their makeshift homes, known in Turkish as gecekondu (‘built by night’), take advantage of an old Ottoman law that protects a house whose roof has been built during the hours of darkness. The slums are eventually knocked down to make way for new tower blocks - a new suburb is created, a new shantytown springs up beyond it, and Istanbul sprawls a little further.
At the other end of the social spectrum are the wealthy "Istanbullus" who live in the upmarket districts of Taksim, Harbiye and Nisantasi, where chunky gold jewellery, Gucci shoes and BMWs are de rigueur, and the streets are lined with expensive apartments, fashion boutiques and stylish cafés. These are the lucky few who frequent the city’s expensive restaurants and clubs, and retire at the weekends to their restored wooden mansions (yalı) along the Bosphorus. But the majority of Istanbul’s inhabitants fall between these extremes, living in modest flats and earning an average wage in the offices, shops, banks and factories that provide most of the city’ s employment.
Just as the Bosphorus separates Asia from Europe, so the inlet called the Golden Horn separates the old Istanbul from the new. The historic heart of the city lies on a small peninsula on the south side of the Golden Horn, known as Saray Burnu, or Seraglio Point. This easily defensible thumb of land is bounded on three sides by the so-called ‘Three Seas’ — the Sea of Marmara to the south, the Bosphorus to the east and the Golden Horn to the north — and on the fourth by the 5th-century Theodosian Walls. Across its seven hills spreads the Old City, also known as Stamboul or Eski Istanbul, home to the city’s richest historic treasures Hagia Sophia, Topkapı Palace, the Blue Mosque, the Covered Bazaar, the Süleymaniye Mosque and the Church of St Saviour in Chora.
The Galata Bridge spans the mouth of the Golden Horn, linking Old Istanbul to the ‘New City’ of Beyoğlu. Here you will find the 14th-century Galata Tower, the stylish shops, cafés and hotels of Istiklal Caddesi and Taksim Square, and the sumptuous splendour of Dolmabahce Palace.
Ferries cross the Bosphorus to Üsküdar and ply the length of the scenic strait, past the pretty fishing villages of Arnavutköy, Kanlıca, Emirgan and Tarabya, and the imposing fortress of Rumeli Hisarı. And to the south, in the Sea of Marmara, lie the woods and beaches of the Princes’ Islands.
The OId City

Istanbul’s most popular tourist attractions are concentrated in the Sultanahmet district, near the tip of the Saray Burnu peninsula, and are all within easy walking distance of each other. A tram line runs from Kabatas, near the Dolmabahce Palace, through Sultanahmet, past the Grand Bazaar, the hotels of Laleli and Aksaray...
Sultanahmet
The Sultanahmet district occupies the summit of the first of the Old City’s seven hills. This was the site of the original Byzantium, founded in the 7th centuıy BC, and of the civic centre of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Here, too, the conquering Ottoman sultans chose to build their most magnificent palaces and mosques. Little now remains of the Byzantine city, but what does is one of the most remarkable buildings ever constructed — Hagia Sophia.

Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya)
Magnificent church of Hagia Sophia was for over 1,000 years the most imıportant church in Christendom, and a lasting syınbol of the might and wealth of the Byzantine Empire.
For nearly 1,000 years, the Church of Hagia Sophia was the greatest church in Christendom, an architectural wonder designed to impress upon the world the might of the Byzantine Empire.
A Christian basilica is thought to have been built here by the Emperor Constantine in AD 325, on the site of a pagan temple. It was destroyed by fire in 404, and rebuilt by Theodosius II, then burnt down again in 532. The building you see today was commissioned by Justinian and cornpleted in 537, though many repairs, additions and alterations have been made over the centuries. The dome has been damaged by earthquakes several times, and the supporting buttresses have coarsened the outward appearance of the church.
The fınest materials were used in its construction — white marble frorn the islands of the Marmara, yellow marble from Africa, verd-antique from Thessaly, gold and silver from Ephesus, and ancient red porphyry
columns which possibly carne frorn Egypt, and may once have stood in the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek. The interior was covered with glowing golden mosaics, lit by countless flickering candelabras.