Instant Cities: Istanbul

Istanbul › Places and landmarks

Hippodrome

At Meydanı

The long square where Byzantium held its chariot races, with an Egyptian obelisk and a bronze serpent column still on it.

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Photo: Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Hippodrome of Constantinople held up to a hundred thousand people for its chariot races, and its teams, the Blues and the Greens, were also political parties. In 532 their riots, the Nika revolt, burnt half the city, and the Hagia Sophia was rebuilt after it.

Today the long, open square follows the line of the old race track. Three monuments stand on its middle: the obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III, brought from Egypt by Theodosius in 390; the Serpent Column, cast after the Greeks beat the Persians at Plataea in 479 BC; and the Walled Obelisk of rough stone. The Turks call it At Meydanı, the horse square. Visit it in 3D ›

More in Istanbul

Hagia SophiaJustinian’s great church of 537, with its dome 55 metres high: a church, then a mosque, a museum and a mosque again. Blue MosqueThe mosque of Sultan Ahmed I, with six minarets and some twenty thousand blue tiles from İznik inside. Basilica CisternThe underground water store of Justinian, a forest of 336 columns standing in the water. Topkapı PalaceThe palace of the Ottoman sultans for almost four hundred years, on the tip of the peninsula above the Bosphorus. Grand BazaarOne of the oldest and largest covered markets in the world, some sixty streets and four thousand shops under one roof. Spice BazaarThe L-shaped covered market by the New Mosque, full of spices, dried fruit, tea and Turkish delight. New MosqueThe great mosque on the water at Eminönü, begun in 1597 and finished 68 years later. Galata BridgeThe bridge over the Golden Horn from Eminönü to Karaköy, lined with anglers on top and fish restaurants below. Sirkeci StationThe end of the line for the Orient Express from Paris, a station of 1890 by the sea. Column of ConstantineThe column Constantine the Great set up in 330 for the founding of his new capital, held together by iron hoops. SimitThe sesame bread ring sold from red carts on every corner, eaten for breakfast with a glass of tea. FerriesThe white ferries that carry Istanbul across the Bosphorus between Europe and Asia, from the quays of Eminönü.