Neolithic artifacts, uncovered by archeologists at the beginning of the 21st century, indicate that Istanbul's historic peninsula was settled as far back as the 6th millennium BCE. That early settlement, important in the spread of the
Neolithic Revolution from the Near East to Europe, lasted for almost a millennium before being inundated by rising water levels. The first human settlement on the Asian side, the Fikirtepe mound, is from the
Copper Age period, with artifacts dating from 5500 to 3500 BCE, On the European side, near the point of the peninsula (
Sarayburnu), there was a Thracian settlement during the early 1st millennium BCE. Modern authors have linked it to the Thracian toponym
Lygos, mentioned by
Pliny the Elder as an earlier name for the site of Byzantium. The history of the city proper begins around 660 BCE, Two months later, he laid out the plans for a new, Christian city to replace Byzantium. As the eastern capital of the empire, the city was named
Nova Roma; most called it Constantinople, a name that persisted into the 20th century. On 11 May 330, Constantinople was proclaimed the capital of the Roman Empire, which was later permanently divided between the two sons of
Theodosius I upon his death on 17 January 395, when the city became the capital of the eastern empire. During the following millennium of Roman history the state was commonly referred to as the "
Byzantine Empire". The establishment of Constantinople was one of Constantine's most lasting accomplishments, shifting Roman power eastward as the city became a center of Greek culture and Christianity. Numerous churches were built across the city, including
Hagia Sophia which was built during the reign of
Justinian I and remained the world's largest cathedral for a thousand years. Constantine also undertook a major renovation and expansion of the
Hippodrome of Constantinople; accommodating tens of thousands of spectators, the hippodrome became central to civic life and, in the 5th and 6th centuries, the center of episodes of unrest, including the
Nika riots. Constantinople's location also ensured its existence would stand the test of time; for many centuries, its walls and seafront protected Europe against invaders from the east and the advance of Islam. Constantinople is generally considered to be the center and the "cradle of Orthodox
Christian civilization". was built by
Justinian the Great Constantinople began to decline continuously after the end of the reign of
Basil II in 1025. The
Fourth Crusade was diverted from its purpose in 1204, and the city was sacked and pillaged by the crusaders. They established the
Latin Empire in place of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire. Hagia Sophia was converted to a Catholic church in 1204. The Byzantine Empire was restored, albeit weakened, in 1261. Constantinople's churches, defenses, and basic services were in disrepair, and its population had dwindled to a hundred thousand from half a million during the 8th century. After the reconquest of 1261, however, some of the city's monuments were restored, and some, like the two
Deesis mosaics in Hagia Sophia and Kariye, were created. Various economic and military policies instituted by
Andronikos II Palaiologos, such as the reduction of military forces, weakened the empire and left it vulnerable to attack. In the mid-14th-century, the
Ottoman Turks began a strategy of gradually taking smaller towns and cities, cutting off Constantinople's supply routes and strangling it slowly. On 29 May 1453, after a 55-day siege during which the last Roman emperor,
Constantine XI, was killed, Sultan
Mehmed II "the Conqueror"
captured Constantinople.
Ottoman Empire Sultan Mehmed declared Constantinople the new capital of the
Ottoman Empire. Hours after the fall of the city, the sultan rode to the Hagia Sophia and summoned an imam to proclaim the
shahada, converting the grand cathedral into an imperial mosque due to the city's refusal to surrender peacefully. Mehmed declared himself as the new
Kayser-i Rûm, the Ottoman Turkish equivalent of the
Caesar of Rome, and the Ottoman state was reorganized into an empire. Following the capture of Constantinople,
Mehmed II immediately set out to revitalize the city. Cognizant that revitalization would fail without the repopulation of the city, Mehmed II welcomed everyone–foreigners, criminals, and runaways– showing extraordinary openness and willingness to incorporate outsiders that came to define Ottoman political culture. He also invited people from all over Europe to his capital, creating a cosmopolitan society that persisted through much of the Ottoman period. Revitalizing Istanbul also required a massive program of restorations, of everything from roads to
aqueducts. Like many monarchs before and since, Mehmed II transformed Istanbul's urban landscape with the wholesale redevelopment of the city center. There was a
huge new palace to rival, if not overshadow,
the old one, a new covered market (still standing as the
Grand Bazaar), porticoes, pavilions, walkways, as well as more than a dozen new mosques. Money could not protect the rich from all the discomforts and harsher sides of Istanbul. The population of Constantinople was 570,000 by the end of the 18th century. A period of rebellion at the start of the 19th century led to the rise of the progressive Sultan
Mahmud II and eventually to the
Tanzimat period, which produced political reforms and allowed new technology to be introduced to the city. Bridges across the Golden Horn were constructed during this period, and Constantinople was connected to the rest of the European railway network in the 1880s. Modern facilities, such as a water supply network, electricity, telephones, and trams, were gradually introduced to Constantinople over the following decades, although later than to other European cities. The modernization efforts were not enough to forestall the
decline of the Ottoman Empire. in 1912 (present-day
İstiklal Avenue in
Beyoğlu). The entrance of the
Church of St. Anthony of Padua is seen at left. A
Nestlé advertisement is visible on a building in the background. With the
Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the
Ottoman Parliament, closed since 14 February 1878, was reopened 30 years later on 23 July 1908, which marked the beginning of the
Second Constitutional Era. The civil strife and political uncertainties in the Ottoman Empire during the months after the revolution encouraged
Austria-Hungary to
annex Bosnia and
Bulgaria to
declare its independence in a jointly coordinated move on 5 October 1908. Sultan
Abdul Hamid II was deposed in 1909, following the counter-revolution attempt known as the
31 March incident. A series of wars in the early 20th century, such as the
Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912) and the
Balkan Wars (1912–1913), plagued the ailing empire's capital and resulted in the
1913 Ottoman coup d'état, which brought the regime of the
Three Pashas. The Ottoman Empire joined
World War I (1914–1918) on the side of the
Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The
deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915 was among the major events which marked the start of the
Armenian genocide during WWI. During the WWI,
the city suffered several times due to the British bombing. Due to Ottoman and Turkish policies of
Turkification and
ethnic cleansing, the city's
Christian population declined from 450,000 to 240,000 between 1914 and 1927. The
Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918. Less than a month later, on November 13, 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople, beginning the
Occupation of Constantinople. The ship was followed by a fleet consisting of British, Italian, Greek, and French ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day. Waves of attacks by the Allies took place in the following months. The Ottoman Parliament was dissolved by the Allies on 11 April 1920 and representatives of the Turkish government signed the
Treaty of Sèvres on 10 August 1920. Following the
Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922), the
Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara abolished the Sultanate on 1 November 1922, and the last Ottoman Sultan,
Mehmed VI, was declared
persona non grata. Leaving aboard the British warship
HMS Malaya on 17 November 1922, he went into exile and died in
Sanremo, Italy, on 16 May 1926. (
Banks Street) in the late 1920s. Completed in 1892, the
Ottoman Bank headquarters is seen at left. In 1995 the
Istanbul Stock Exchange moved to
İstinye, while numerous Turkish banks have moved to
Levent and
Maslak The
Treaty of Lausanne was signed on 24 July 1923, and the occupation of Constantinople ended with the departure of the last forces of the Allies from the city on 4 October 1923. Turkish forces of the Ankara government, commanded by
Şükrü Naili Pasha (3rd Corps), entered the city with a ceremony on 6 October 1923, which has been marked as the "Liberation Day of Istanbul" (), and has been commemorated annually since. A
1942 wealth tax assessed mainly on non-Muslims led to the transfer or liquidation of many businesses owned by religious minorities. The
US-incited and state-sanctioned
1955 Istanbul pogrom, in which hundreds of Greek men, women and children were attacked and raped and dozens murdered, led to the emigration of most of the remaining Greeks in Istanbul. Government persecution of Greeks and religious minorities, especially
Christians, intensified through the 1960s as part of the process of
Turkification. Further
mass expulsions of Greeks took place in 1964–1965. As a result of these policies, the Greek population of Istanbul decreased from 110,000 in 1919 to 2,500 today. From the late 1940s and early 1950s, Istanbul underwent great structural change, as new public squares, boulevards, and avenues were constructed throughout the city, sometimes at the expense of historical buildings. The overall population of Istanbul began to rapidly increase in the 1970s, as people from Anatolia migrated to the city to find employment in the many new factories that were built on the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis. This sudden, sharp rise in the city's population caused a large demand for housing, and many previously outlying villages and forests became engulfed into the
metropolitan area of Istanbul as result of
urban sprawl. ==Geography and environment==