Instant Cities: Istanbul

Istanbul › Places and landmarks

Topkapı Palace

Topkapı Sarayı

The palace of the Ottoman sultans for almost four hundred years, on the tip of the peninsula above the Bosphorus.

See it in 3D Watch the tour

Photo: Premeditated, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mehmed II began the palace soon after he took Constantinople in 1453, on the point where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus. It is not one building but a row of courtyards behind each other, each more private than the last: the Imperial Gate by the Hagia Sophia, the Gate of Salutation with its two towers, the council hall, the treasury, and the harem, where the sultan lived with his family.

The sultans lived here until the 1850s, when they moved to the Dolmabahçe Palace on the Bosphorus. Since 1924 it has been a museum, with the Topkapı dagger, the Spoonmaker’s Diamond and the relics of the Prophet. Gülhane Park, once its outer garden, runs down the slope below it. 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. HippodromeThe long square where Byzantium held its chariot races, with an Egyptian obelisk and a bronze serpent column still on it. Basilica CisternThe underground water store of Justinian, a forest of 336 columns standing in the water. 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.