Description & Facts: Istanbul is the maximal municipality in Fowl and ordinal maximal city right in the domain with a population of 12.8 meg, also making it the support largest metropolitan atlantic in Continent by collection, and the largest metropolitan metropolis kosher. Constantinople is also a megacity, as source as the social, efficient, and business heart of Turkey. The port covers 39 districts of the Metropolis domain. It is situated on the Bosphorus Straits and encompasses the rude nurse famous as the Golden Horn, in the point of the region. It extends both on the Inhabitant (Thrace) and on the Continent (Anatolia) sides of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the exclusive metropolis in the world that is situated on two continents. In its bimestrial record, Istanbul has served as the top city of the Papistic Empire (330-395), the Orient Papistical (Tortuous) Corporation (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Emotional Empire (1204-1261), and the Empire Empire (1453-1922). The port was korea as render European City of Civilisation for 2010. Past areas of Metropolis were another to the UNESCO Earth Attribute Angle in 1985. Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion) is the first known name of the city. Around 660 BC, Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded a Doric colony on the present-day Istanbul, and named the new colony after their king, Byzas. After Constantine I (Constantine the Great) made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD, the city became widely known as Constantinopolis or Constantinople, which, as the Latinised form of "Κωνσταντινούπολις" (Kōnstantinoúpolis), means the "City of Constantine". He also attempted to promote the name Nea Roma ("New Rome"), but this never caught on. Constantinople remained the official name of the city throughout the Byzantine period, and the most common name used for it in the West until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. By the 19th century, the city had acquired a number of names used by either foreigners or Turks. Europeans often used Stamboul alongside Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, but Turks used the former name only to describe the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. Pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu, which is still in use today. However, with the Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930, the Turkish authorities formally requested foreigners to adopt İstanbul, a name in existence since the 10th century, as the sole name of the city within their own languages. There are many theories attempting to explain İstanbul's etymology. One widely accepted theory states that, İstanbul, colloquially) derives from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν" or, in the Aegean dialect, "εἰς τὰν Πόλιν" (Modern Greek "στην Πόλη" [stin ˈpoli]), which means "in the city" or "to the city". In modern Turkish, the name is written "İstanbul", with a dotted İ, as the Turkish alphabet distinguishes between a dotted and dotless I. Also, while in English the stress is on the first syllable ("Is"), in Turkish it is on the second syllable ("tan"). Like Rome, Istanbul has been called "The City of Seven Hills" because the oldest part of the city is supposedly built on seven hills, each of which bears a historic mosque. Recent construction of the Marmaray tunnel unearthed a Neolithic settlement underneath Yenikapı on Istanbul's peninsula. Dating back to the 7th millennium BC, before the Bosphorus was even formed, the discovery indicated that the peninsula was settled thousands of years earlier than previously thought. Thracian tribes established two settlements—Lygos and Semistra—on the Sarayburnu, near where Topkapı Palace now stands, between the 13th and 11th centuries BC. On the Asian side, artifacts have been found in Fikirtepe (present-day Kadıköy) that date back to the Chalcolithic period. The same location was the site of a Phoenician trading post at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC as well as the town of Chalcedon, which was established by Greek settlers from Megara in 685 BC. However, the history of Istanbul generally begins around 660 BC, when the settlers from Megara, under the command of King Byzas, established Byzantion (Latinised as Byzantium) on the European side of the Bosphorus. By the end of the century, an acropolis was established at the former locations of Lygos and Semistra, on the Sarayburnu. The city experienced a brief period under Persian rule at the turn of the 5th century BC, but the Greeks recaptured it during the Greco-Persian Wars. Byzantium then continued as part of the Athenian League and its successor, the Second Athenian Empire, before ultimately gaining independence in 355 BC. Long protected by the Roman Republic, Byzantium officially became a part of the Roman Empire in 73 AD. Byzantium's decision to side with the usurper Pescennius Niger against Roman Emperor Septimus Severus cost it dearly; by the time it surrendered at the end of 195, two years of siege had left the city devastated. Still, five years later, Severus began to rebuild Byzantium, and the city regained—and, by some accounts, surpassed—its previous prosperity. The population of the metropolis more than tripled during the 25 years between 1980 and 2005. Roughly 70% of all Istanbulites live in the European section and around 30% in the Asian section. Due to high unemployment in the southeast of Turkey, many people from that region migrated to Istanbul, where they established themselves in the outskirts of the city. Migrants, predominantly from eastern Anatolia arrive in Istanbul expecting improved living conditions and employment, which usually end with little success. This results each year with new gecekondus at the outskirts of the city, which are later developed into neighbourhoods and integrated into the greater metropolis. The city has a population of 11,372,613 residents according to the latest count as of 2007, and is one of the largest cities in the world today. The rate of population growth in the city is currently at 3.45% a year on average, mainly due to the influx of people from the surrounding rural areas. Istanbul's population density of 2,742 people per square mile (1,700 per square km) far exceeds Turkey's 130 people per square mile (81 people per square km). Most of the city’s population are ethnic Turks. Kurds now constitute the largest ethnic minority in the city. There are several million Kurdish migrants from the countryside in Istanbul. During the early Middle Ages, Istanbul was the largest city in the world, and has been one of the world's largest and most important cities during much of its history (excepting the period of collapse of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire before the Ottomans). Its geopolitical significance since ancient times brought representatives of ethnic groups from all over Europe, Asia, and Africa. Throughout its history the ethnic Greek and then Turkish populations have assimilated these groups throughout the city's history. The following overview shows the numbers of inhabitants by year. Population tallies up to 1914 are estimated with variations of up to 50% depending upon researcher. The numbers from 1927 to 2000 are results of censuses. The numbers of 2005 and 2006 are based on computer simulation forecasts. The doubling of the population of Istanbul between 1980 and 1985 is due to a natural increase in population as well as the expansion of municipal limits.