Explore Istanbul

The Grand Bazaar is a covered market in the old city whose founding is dated to 1461, when Sultan Mehmed II had the Cevahir Bedesten built to fund Hagia Sophia. Its vaulted lanes grew around that hall and today hold about 3,600 shops on 65 streets, with 14 hans and gates such as Beyazıt and Nuruosmaniye; carpets, jewellery and gold are traded here.

The Süleymaniye Mosque crowns the Third Hill above the Golden Horn and was built in 1550–1557 by the architect Mimar Sinan for Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Its complex holds madrasas, a hospice and the tombs of Suleiman and Hürrem Sultan. It is a working mosque: visits pause at prayer times, and visitors cover shoulders and knees, women their hair.

The Theodosius Cistern was built between 428 and 443 under Emperor Theodosius II to store water brought by the Valens Aqueduct for the Great Palace and nearby baths. Its roof of 45 brick vaults rests on 32 marble columns with Corinthian capitals. Restored by the Fatih district council, it is open to visitors and hosts digital light projections on its walls and columns.

The Rüstem Pasha Mosque near the Spice Bazaar was designed by Mimar Sinan for Grand Vizier Rüstem Pasha and completed around 1563. Raised above vaulted shops and reached by stairs from the street, it has İznik tiles in many patterns on the porch and prayer hall walls. It is a working mosque, closed to visitors during prayers; modest dress is expected.

The Spice Bazaar in Eminönü is an L-shaped covered market begun in 1597 for Safiye Sultan and completed in 1664 by the architect Mustafa Ağa as part of the New Mosque complex, for Hatice Turhan Sultan. Its Turkish name, Egyptian Bazaar, recalls the duties on Egyptian goods that funded it; six gates lead to stalls of spices, dried fruit and Turkish delight.

Little Hagia Sophia was built under Emperor Justinian in the 520s or 530s as the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and became a mosque in the early 16th century, under Bayezid II. Its domed octagonal hall, ringed by a two-storey colonnade with carved capitals, is among the oldest Byzantine buildings in Istanbul; it is a working mosque, closed to visitors during prayers.

The Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum occupies the palace of Grand Vizier Pargalı İbrahim Pasha, built around 1524 on the west side of the Hippodrome. Founded in 1914 and moved here in 1983, it shows carpets, calligraphy and Qurans, tiles, woodwork and metalwork from across the Islamic world, and an ethnographic section with reconstructed nomad tents and village rooms.

Sultanahmet Square follows the track of the Hippodrome of Constantinople, laid out around 203 and enlarged by Constantine the Great as the city's chariot-racing arena. Along its old central spine stand the Obelisk of Theodosius, brought from Egypt and raised in 390, the bronze Serpent Column from Delphi, the Walled Obelisk and the German Fountain of 1900.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque was built in 1609–1616 for Sultan Ahmed I by the architect Sedefkâr Mehmed Ağa, facing Hagia Sophia across Sultanahmet Square. Six minarets and cascading domes rise over a prayer hall lined with Iznik tiles. As a working mosque it closes to visitors around the noon and afternoon prayers and on Friday mornings; arms, legs and hair must be covered.

The Basilica Cistern is an underground reservoir built under Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century to supply the Great Palace and nearby buildings. Its brick vaults, covering about 140 by 70 metres, rest on 336 marble columns nine metres high, and walkways lead over the water to two Medusa heads reused as column bases. A restoration completed in 2022 reopened it as a museum.

The Hürrem Sultan Hammam stands between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque on the site of the Roman Baths of Zeuxippus. Mimar Sinan built it in 1556–57 for Hürrem Sultan, wife of Suleiman the Magnificent, with men's and women's sections laid out as mirror images on one 75-metre axis. Restored, it works again as a Turkish bath offering hammam rituals and massages.

Hagia Sophia was built in 532–537 for Emperor Justinian I by Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus, under a central dome about 55 metres high. A cathedral for nine centuries, it became a mosque in 1453, a museum in 1934 and a mosque again in 2020; since 2024 tourists reach the upper galleries and their Byzantine mosaics by a separate ticketed route.

Hagia Irene stands in the outer courtyard of Topkapı Palace and is the oldest known church building in Istanbul; the present brick structure dates from Justinian I's rebuilding after 532. Never turned into a mosque, it served the Ottomans as an arsenal and is now a museum and concert venue, with a large black cross from the Iconoclast period in the apse.

The Istanbul Archaeology Museums in Gülhane, beside Topkapı Palace, group three buildings: the Neoclassical Archaeological Museum by Alexandre Vallaury, opened in 1891, the Museum of the Ancient Orient and the Tiled Kiosk of 1472. Expanded under director Osman Hamdi Bey, the collection includes the Alexander Sarcophagus and other finds from the royal necropolis of Sidon.

Topkapı Palace was built from 1460 to 1478 for Sultan Mehmed II on the headland above the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, and remained the sultans' main residence until Dolmabahçe Palace was completed in 1856. Its gates lead through four courtyards to the Harem, the Imperial Treasury, the Chamber of Holy Relics and pavilions overlooking the water.

Galata Tower was built by the Genoese in 1348 as the Tower of Christ at the highest point of the walls around their Galata colony, and at about 67 metres it was then the tallest building in the city. Later a prison and a fire lookout, it was restored in 2020 and is now a museum, with a gallery around its top overlooking the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.

Istanbul Modern opened in 2004 as Turkey's first museum of modern and contemporary art and moved in 2023 into a new building by Renzo Piano on the Karaköy waterfront, within the Galataport complex. It shows its collection of Turkish art from the 20th century onwards and its photography collection alongside temporary exhibitions, with a cinema and a library.

The Chora is a Byzantine church in Edirnekapı whose mosaics and frescoes were added in 1315–1321 for the statesman Theodore Metochites, among them the Anastasis in the side chapel. Converted to a mosque in the early 16th century and a museum from 1945, it reopened as the Kariye Mosque in 2024; tourist visits pause at prayer times and on Fridays.

İstiklal Avenue is a 1.4-kilometre pedestrian street in Beyoğlu, running from Tünel Square to Taksim Square. Known as the Grande Rue de Péra, it was renamed after the founding of the Republic in 1923. Late Ottoman buildings line it, holding shops, cafés, cinemas, churches and arcades such as the Çiçek Pasajı, and a heritage tram runs along it.

The Maiden's Tower stands on a small islet at the southern entrance of the Bosphorus, 200 metres off the Üsküdar shore. Fortified by the Byzantines, who stretched a chain from it across the strait in the 12th century, it was rebuilt several times under the Ottomans and served as a lighthouse; after a restoration it reopened in 2023 as a museum reached by boat from Salacak.