Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, and the world’s fifteenth-largest city. Founded as Byzantion by Megarian colonists in 660 BCE, and renamed as Constantinople in 330 CE. In 1930 the city’s name was officially changed to Istanbul, an appellation Greek speakers used since the eleventh century to colloquially refer to the city. Over 13.4 million foreign visitors came to Istanbul in 2018.
About Istanbul, Turkey in brief
Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey, and the world’s fifteenth-largest city. Founded as Byzantion by Megarian colonists in 660 BCE, and renamed as Constantinople in 330 CE. In 1930 the city’s name was officially changed to Istanbul, an appellation Greek speakers used since the eleventh century to colloquially refer to the city. Over 13.4 million foreign visitors came to Istanbul in 2018, eight years after it was named a European Capital of Culture. Istanbul is home to several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and hosts the headquarters of numerous Turkish companies, accounting for more than thirty percent of the country’s economy. Neolithic artifacts, uncovered by archeologists at the beginning of the 21st century, indicate that Istanbul’s historic peninsula was settled as far back as the 6th millennium BCE. That early settlement, important in the spread of the Near East to Europe, lasted for almost a millennium before being inundated by rising water levels. The first human settlement on the Asian side, the Fikirtepe mound, is from the Copper Age period, with artifacts dating from 5500 to 3500 BCE, on the European side of the Bosphorus. Modern authors have linked it to the early Thracian settlement during the 1st millennium BCE, near the point of the peninsula. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase ‘to the city’ and is how Constantinople was referred to by the local Greeks.
This reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. In modern Turkish, the name is written as İ Istanbul, with a dotted İ, as the Turkish alphabet distinguishes between a dotted and dotless I. A person from the city is an İstanbullu, although Istanbulite is used in English. 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’ on coinage was in 1703 during the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. In English the stress is on the first or last syllable, but in Turkish it is in the second syllable. A person is an ‘Istanbulite’ in English, although Istabulu is in English and Istanbulite in Turkish. Istanbul is the world’s fifth-most popular tourist destination, with over 13.5 million visitors in 2018. It is the home to more than 30 UNESCO world heritage sites, including several World Heritage sites and a number of ancient monuments. The city is also home to the largest museum in the world, the National Museum of Natural History, which dates back to the 4th century BC. It was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 1453 to 1923, when Ankara replaced the city as the capital. It served as an imperial capital for almost sixteen centuries.
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This page is based on the article Istanbul, Turkey published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
