What Is Istanbul Like?
Situated at the point where East meets West, Turkey’s largest city with a current population of 15 million is a city of legend and history.
The name ‘Ýstanbul’ is a corruption of the Greek words ‘to the city’, a phrase which in time came to be synonymous with the name of the city itself, much in the same way as the English expression, ‘I’m going to the town’ meant only London.
First settlement was held around 658 BC by Byzas, a Megarian Greek. It changed several hands. In 395 Theodosius the Great died and in his will he divided the Roman Empire between his two sons, Honorius was given the West and Arcadius was given the East. With the fall of Rome to Attila the Hun, a Turkish leader in the early years of the following century, the city rapidly assumed the character and status of the principal city of the civilized World. But it and its Empire were no longer Roman; Constantinople was Greek. Its population was estimated to be around 300,000.
Byzantine civilisation reached its peak in the Golden Age, which followed the reign of Justinian (527-595). The city was besieged for several centuries by Huns, Goths, Bulgars, Slavs and Arabs. In 1204, it was captured and sacked by the Crusaders, Only to be re-captured by Constantine II in 1261. The Ottoman Turks began their attacks in the 15th century. On April 11, 1453 Sultan Mehmet II began a bombardment, which lasted seven weeks and after a siege of 53 days, he ceremoniously entered the city and his considerable victory gave him the title Fatih (the Conqueror) in the Islamic World. The tolerance of the Ottoman Turks has meant that a majority of religious buildings from Byzantine period still exist, if only some big churches converted to mosques.
There are now 157 Christian churches, 17 synagogues and 10 monasteries in Istanbul and nearly 2000 mosques.
Out of every six Turks live in Istanbul. Population density of Turkey is 81 people per km2 but in Istanbul population density is 1700 people per km2. Istanbul’s population grows at the rate of 3,5% annually due to the migration from countryside. The city has 54 municipalities and extends for 100 km. in the east-west and for 38 km in the north-south directions respectively. There are 160.000 businesses, 7400 factories, 1200 bank branch offices, 4224 pubs, nearly 1000 hotels, 70 cinemas,6 universities, 2670 schools and 100 hospitals in the city.
303 newspapers and 495 periodicals are published in Ýstanbul. There are nearly 1,5 million motor vehicles are registered and 300 more join the traffic daily. City produces 7000 tons of solid and 1 million cubic meters of liquid wastes daily.
27.5% of Turkey’s national product is produced in Ýstanbul and 40% of all tax collected in Turkey is collected in Ýstanbul. 38% of Turkey’s industrial firms and 55% of Turkey’s commercial firms are concentrated in Ýstanbul.
The income annually produced in Ýstanbul is equal to 1,5 times the GNP of Romania, 2,5 times the GNP of Syria, 4,5 times the GNP of Bulgaria and 21,5 times the GNP of Armenia.
55% of Turkish textile production, 55% of Turkish chemical goods production takes place in Ýstanbul.
One fifth of Turkey’s exports and one third of Turkey’s imports are handled through Ýstanbul where there are 40.000 export and 30.000 import companies.
Annually 1,5 million tourists come to Ýstanbul and 150,000 planes land at Atatürk Airport in Ýstanbul.
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