Turkey » Istanbul

Istanbul is Turkey's largest city, and its cultural and economic center. It is located on the Bosphorus strait, and encompasses the natural harbour known as the Golden Horn (Turkish: Hali), in the northwest of the country. Istanbul extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is on two continents. Its 2000 Census population is 8,803,468 (city proper) and 10,018,735 (province), making it, by some counts, one of the largest cities in Europe.

The census bureau estimate for July 20, 2005 is 11,322,000 for Istanbul province, which is generally considered as the metropolitan area, making it one of the twenty largest metropolitan areas in the world. Istanbul is located at 41° N 28° E, and is the capital of Istanbul Province. Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, had been the popular name of the city for 5 centuries already, which became official in 1930. Due to its three-thousand-year old history it is considered as one of the oldest still existing cities of the world. Istanbul has been chosen as the European Capital of Culture for 2010. Istanbul is sometimes called the "City on Seven Hills" because the historic peninsula which is the oldest part was built on seven hills, also represented with seven mosques at the top of each hill.

The townscape of Istanbul is shaped by many communities. Important religious minorities are the Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and the Sephardic Jews. In Istanbul small boroughs are inhabited by ethnic Armenians, Jews and Greeks.

The city is traditionally the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch, to some orthodox churches and seat of an Armenian archbishop as well as the archbishop of the Turkish-Orthodox community. The everyday life of the Armenian and Greek minorities still living in Istanbul changed after the First World War of discrimination and constant repression. In 1942 came the introduction of a special wealth tax (varlik vergisi). In 1964, all Greeks (around 100.000) without Turkish citizenship residing in Turkey were deported. Today, most of Turkey's Greek and Armenian minority lives in or near Istanbul. Beside the Levantines, who are the descendants of European traders who had started trading outposts in the Ottoman Empire, there is also a small, scattered number of Bosphorus Germans. A number of places reflect past movements of different communities into Istanbul, most notably Arnavutköy (Albanian village), Polonezköy (Polish village) and Yenibosna (New Bosnia).