Worth knowing

The district of Fatih is located on a peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara, on the European continent. During the 7th century B.C., the Greeks founded the city of Byzantium in the area that is now Fatih.

Around 330 A.D., the roman emperor Constantine the Great declared Byzantium the new capital of the East Roman Empire and called it Constantinople. In 1453, Sultan Mehmed, ruler of the small Ottoman principality on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, conquered Constantinople and was henceforth called Fatih, Turkish for “the Conqueror”.

Sultan Mehmed renamed the city Istanbul and declared it the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to its advantageous location on the Bosporus, Istanbul grew quickly, and it is still growing today.

Then as now, people are drawn to Istanbul. Fatih with its roughly 440,000 residents is one of 40 districts of this new megalopolis, which is home to more than 13 million people.