Istanbul
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"We landed at Galata. I immediately remarked the bustle on the quays, and the throng of porters, merchants, and seamen, the latter announcing by the different colour of their complexions, by the diversity of their languages, and of their dress, by their robes, their hats, their caps, their turbans, that they had come from every part of Europe and Asia to inhabit this frontier of two worlds. The almost total absence of women, the want of wheel carriages, and the multitude of dogs without masters, were three distinguishing characteristics that first struck me in the interior of this extraordinary city." --Itinéraire de Paris à Jérusalem (1811) by Chateaubriand |
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Constantinople was the name of present-day Istanbul from 330-1930 C.E.. It was previously known as Byzantium.
It was the capital city of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, the Latin and the Ottoman Empire. It was founded in AD 330, at ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, after whom it was named. In the 12th century, the city was the largest and wealthiest European city.