Istanbul, famously called as Constantinople is the most populous city in the continent of Europe. It was called as Byzantium in the times of the Byzantine Empire and is today the fourth most populous city on the globe with the urban area being ranked on number 20.

The city is the hub of Turkish cultural and finance and encompasses a total of 27 districts all within the province of Istanbul. The city of Istanbul is situated on the Bosphorus Strait and the Harbor is called as the Golden Horn. It lies in the northwestern part of Turkey and extends to the Thrace which is in Europe as well as Anatolia which is in the continent of Asia. It is the only metropolitan city in the entire world which is transcontinental. Formerly the capital city of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire as well as the Ottoman Empire, it lost the status to Ankara after the descent of the last Kingdom. The city has been selected amongst all the European cities the joint European Capital of Culture for the year 2010. The monuments of the city were made part of the UNESCO World Heritage List in the year 1985. The total area occupied by the city is that of 1,830.92 km² or 706.9 sq miles and it is situated at an altitude of 100 m or 328 ft. the city lies in the region of Marmara and was founded in the year 667 BC as Byzantium. The Romans referred to it as Nova Roma as well as Constantinople during their reign. The city was given the name Constantinople in the year 337 AD after the death of Constantine and was acknowledged as that till 1930 when the official name of Istanbul arrived. Population of Istanbul or the former Constantinople according to an estimate is about 11,372,613 and the population density is 6,211/km² or 16,086.4/sq miles.