Istanbul
Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey and amongst the largest of cities in the world, with a population nearing 13 million. For the most part, Istanbul is located in the European part of Turkey, Thrace, but extends into parts of Asia-Minor. While Ankara is the formal capital of Turkey, Istanbul is largely considered the cultural and financial capital of the nation. Throughout its history, Istanbul has been a major city, known by names such as Byzantium and Constantinople.
Constantinople was the magnificent city that served as the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire, later the Byzantine Empire. Formerly the city of Byzantium, Constantine renamed it Constantinople (a derived form of "Constantinopolis") in A.D. 330. It was designed to be the Rome of the East, and served that purpose for roughly 1000 years after the fall of Rome itself. It was conquered by the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II in 1453. It served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire until the Empire was destroyed by the First World War.
