page_title: Constantinople
section_title: Modern names of the city
hierarchical_section_title: Constantinople / Names / Modern names of the city
caption_attribution_description: The Obelisk of Thutmose III in the Hippodrome of Constantinople.
context_page_description: Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the brief Crusader state known as the Latin Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.
  With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the capital of Turkey was moved to Ankara, and the Greco-Roman name Constantinople was officially changed to Istanbul in 1930, by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This was a contraction of an earlier Greek name of the city, "εις την Πόλην". The city is still referred to as Constantinople in Greek-speaking sources. The original city is located in what is now the European side and the core of modern Istanbul.
  In 324, the ancient city of Byzantium was made the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was renamed, and dedicated on 11 May 330. From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe.
context_section_description: The modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin (εἰς τὴν πόλιν), meaning "(in)to the city". This name was used in Turkish alongside Kostantiniyye, the more formal adaptation of the original Constantinople, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script. After that, as part of the 1920s Turkification movement, Turkey started to urge other countries to use Turkish names for Turkish cities, instead of other transliterations to Latin script that had been used in Ottoman times. In time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages.
  The name "Constantinople" is still used by members of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the title of one of their most important leaders, the Orthodox patriarch based in the city, referred to as "His Most Divine All-Holiness the Archbishop of Constantinople New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch." In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpoli(s) (Κωνσταντινούπολις/Κωνσταντινούπολη) or simply just "the City" (Η Πόλη).
caption: Obelisk of Theodosius is the Ancient Egyptian obelisk of Pharaoh Thutmose III re-erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the 4th century AD.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "IR-300", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Version 1.1", "Image DateTime": "2007:07:18 13:55:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "1062", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2730", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5934", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/800", "EXIF FNumber": "33/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "64", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:07:18 13:55:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:07:18 13:55:52", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "86/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "63/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1200", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1600", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}