Istanbul (Turkish spelling: İstanbul); until 1930Constantinople and in ancient times Byzantium or Byzantion. With a population of between 11 and 15 million people, Istanbul is the largest city of Turkey and by some counts one of the largest cities in Europe, despite only 3% of the city's landmass being on the European side of the Bosphorus Strait. The city is also the administrative capital of the IstanbulProvince.
The old city is mainly located on the Bosporus strait, which separates Europe from Asia and the Black Sea from the Marmara Sea. However, the modern city is much larger and covers both European and Asian sides of the Bosporus. Famous tourist destinations include Sariyer, Eyüp and Taksim on the European side, and Beykoz, Üsküdar, Kadiköy, Moda, Bostanci and Adalar (the Prince's Islands) on the Asian side. Although Istanbul is no longer the capital of Turkey, it is still arguably the most important city to Turkish industry, commerce and culture and the most important import and export center.
There are two mainstream hypothesis about the etymology of the name Istanbul: the first states that the name Istanbul comes from the Greek words eis tin Poli meaning "at the City" (the City/Polis being Constantinoupolis), while the second suggests that the name is merely a Turkish contraction of Constantinoupolis. The sound rendered by "i" is prepended by the virtue of the language. Many Turkic languages forbid certain combinations of consonants at the beginning of the word, hence certain borrowed words acquire a vowel chosen according to the rule of vowel harmony. In this way Smyrna became Izmir and Nicaea became Iznik, just as "machine" became "amashina" in e.g., Abkhaz language. The intermediate form Stamboul was commonly used in the 19th century.
Etymological and historical objection to the above definition:
Istanbul is simply a Hellenic word: Eistenpoli, meaning "to the city". It has been the vulgar name of the town since her foundation by Constantinus I. It's not a result of a renaming, therefore.
Compare with "İslâm bol", invented around the 17th century as an assonance to the original name.
