Theme Week Istanbul – Fatih

17 August 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  11 minutes

Topkapı Palace © Carlos Delgado/cc-by-sa-3.0

Topkapı Palace © Carlos Delgado/cc-by-sa-3.0

Fatih is the capital district and a municipality (belediye) in Istanbul, which hosts the provincial authorities, including the governor’s office, police headquarters, and metropolitan municipality while encompassing the peninsula coinciding with old Constantinople. In 2009, the district of Eminönü, which had been a separate municipality located at the tip of the peninsula, was merged into Fatih due to the minute amount of inhabitants in the prior. Fatih borders the Golden Horn to the north and the Sea of Marmara to the south, while the Western border is demarked by the Theodosian wall and in the east by the Bosphorus Strait. The name “Fatih” comes from the Ottoman emperor Fatih Sultan Mehmed (Mehmed the Conqueror), and means “Conqueror” in Turkish, originally from Arabic. The Fatih Mosque built by Mehmed II is in this district, while his resting place is next to the mosque and is much visited. It was on the ruins of the Church of the Holy Apostles, destroyed by earthquakes and years of war, that the Fatih Mosque was built, and around the mosque a large prayer school.   read more…

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