Researchers
Istanbul
Istanbul, formerly Constantinople: capital of the Byzantines for a thousand years until Mehmed the Conqueror took it in 1453, turned Hagia Sophia into a mosque, and made it the seat of the Ottoman caliphate for four centuries. It peaked under Suleiman the Magnificent: Sinan''s Blue and Suleymaniye mosques, its Grand Bazaar and its quarters on the Bosphorus. Istanbul wove Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman into one city — Constantinople with its walls and Istanbul with its minarets — and it remains the bridge between Europe and Asia to this day. It is the only city seated on two continents, so it became the parable of meetings — east and west, Islam and Christianity, two empires inside one set of walls. From Istanbul the Ottomans led their fleets to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, the first Ottoman Arabic press printed there, and it stays Turkey's largest city and its cultural bridge to the world.