ISTANBUL IN BRIEF

Geography Istanbul, The main reason of Istanbul's being a very popular city for which wars are made, lives are lost is its geographical location, Let's review this location first: In its south stretches Marmara Sea and in its north is Black Sea. Its west part is in Europe and east part is in Asia. The important waterline dividing Istanbul into two is the Bosphorus. The only alternative to reach the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, therefore to open sea is to use Istanbul and the the Bosphorus. Istanbul is both the nearest Asian city to Europe and the nearest European city to Asia.

What adds to Istanbul's significance is its being a port city and all trade paths, passing through the city for thousands of years. Another important feature of Istanbul is that it has a highly sheltered structure. Especially the center which is presently called as the 'historical peninsula', which was made capital city by both Byzantine and Ottoman Empires and its being located on a hill surrounded by three seas made it almost impossible to be conquered. Indeed, Haliç had the quality of being an unparalleled harbour sheltering navy fleets.

İstanbul, still geographically perfect!
Although thousands of years have passed, İstanbul still maintains its geographical importance. Today İstanbul is a huge metropolis connecting continents, cultures, religions and being home to eleven million people; and one of the greatest business and cultural center of the region…

Economy
As well as being a capital to three empires, Istanbul is one of the very few cities which is able to maintain its quality of being an economical center. Indeed, although not serving as capital to the new republic declared in 1923, it kept its economically central position and never lost this power to determine the fate of the country.