Travelling, Society and Culture

Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul, see the historical names of Istanbul) is the largest city in Turkey and fourth largest city proper in the world with a population of 12.8 million, also making it the second largest metropolitan area in Europe by population, and the largest metropolitan city proper.[5] Istanbul is also a megacity, as well as the cultural, economic, and financial centre of Turkey. The city covers 39 districts of the Istanbul province.[8] It is located on the Bosphorus Strait and encompasses the natural harbour known as the Golden Horn, in the northwest of the country. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) sides of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents.

In its long history, Istanbul has served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (330–395), the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire (395–1204 and 1261–1453), the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). The city was chosen as joint European Capital of Culture for 2010. Historic areas of Istanbul were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985.

Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion) is the first known name of the city. Around 660 BC,[note 1] Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded a Doric colony on the present-day Istanbul, and named the new colony after their king, Byzas.[15] After Constantine I (Constantine the Great) made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD, the city became widely known as Constantinopolis or Constantinople, which, as the Latinised form of "Κωνσταντινούπολις" (Kōnstantinoúpolis), means the "City of Constantine".[16] He also attempted to promote the name Nea Roma ("New Rome"), but this never caught on.[17] Constantinople remained the official name of the city throughout the Byzantine period, and the most common name used for it in the West until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

By the 19th century, the city had acquired a number of names used by either foreigners or Turks. Europeans often used Stamboul alongside Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, but Turks used the former name only to describe the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. Pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu, which is still in use today.[18] However, with the Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930, the Turkish authorities formally requested foreigners to adopt İstanbul, a name in existence since the 10th century,[19] as the sole name of the city within their own languages.[20]

There are many theories attempting to explain İstanbul's etymology. One widely accepted theory states that, İstanbul (Turkish pronunciation: [isˈtanbuɫ], colloquially [ɯsˈtambuɫ]) derives from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν" [is tin ˈpolin] or, in the Aegean dialect, "εἰς τὰν Πόλιν" [is tan ˈpolin] (Modern Greek "στην Πόλη" [stin ˈpoli]), which means "in the city" or "to the city".[16][19] In modern Turkish, the name is written "İstanbul", with a dotted İ, as the Turkish alphabet distinguishes between a dotted and dotless I. Also, while in English the stress is on the first syllable ("Is"), in Turkish it is on the second syllable ("tan"). Like Rome, Istanbul has been called "The City of Seven Hills" because the oldest part of the city is supposedly built on seven hills, each of which bears a historic mosque.
Recent construction of the Marmaray tunnel unearthed a Neolithic settlement underneath Yenikapı on Istanbul's historic peninsula. Dating back to the 7th millennium BC, before the Bosphorus was even formed, the discovery indicated that the peninsula was settled thousands of years earlier than previously thought.[22] Thracian tribes established two settlements—Lygos and Semistra—on the Sarayburnu, near where Topkapı Palace now stands, between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. On the Asian side, artifacts have been found in Fikirtepe (present-day Kadıköy) that date back to the Chalcolithic period.[23] The same location was the site of a Phoenician trading post at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC as well as the town of Chalcedon, which was established by Greek settlers from Megara in 685 BC.[13]

However, the history of Istanbul generally begins around 660 BC,[note 1] when the settlers from Megara, under the command of King Byzas, established Byzantion (Latinised as Byzantium) on the European side of the Bosphorus. By the end of the century, an acropolis was established at the former locations of Lygos and Semistra, on the Sarayburnu.[15] The city experienced a brief period under Persian rule at the turn of the 5th century BC, but the Greeks recaptured it during the Greco-Persian Wars.[24] Byzantium then continued as part of the Athenian League and its successor, the Second Athenian Empire, before ultimately gaining independence in 355 BC.[25] Long protected by the Roman Republic, Byzantium officially became a part of the Roman Empire in 73 AD.

Byzantium's decision to side with the usurper Pescennius Niger against Roman Emperor Severus of Antioch cost it dearly; by the time it surrendered at the end of 195, two years of siege had left the city devastated.[26] Still, five years later, Severus began to rebuild Byzantium, and the city regained—and, by some accounts, surpassed—its previous prosperity.