PAST & FUTURE
Istanbul measures time in millennia. The city possesses an uninterrupted urban tradition that stretches back at least to 685 BC but it supported settlements five thousand years before, among the oldest on earth. The capital, created by Constantine in 330 AD, changed the geography of the known world, moving the centre of Europe further east.
Istanbul plays an important role in European history and experience. The great domes of Saint Sofia and the Blue Mosque, which dominate the skyline of the historical peninsula, possess a continuity and symmetry that is remarkable not just because they are the products of different faiths, but because they were built one thousand years apart. Istanbul is eager to preserve its unique heritage but equally eager to embrace innovation and change.
The ancient capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires is now the cultural and commercial powerhouse of modern Turkey. Its new landmarks are corporate towers and ambitious public transport schemes, all evidence of a GDP of more than 100 billion, a figure greater than that of Beijing, Mumbai or Rome, and comparable with that of Hungary or the Czech Republic. The business and cultural life of the city – its energy – has been a key driving force for the globalization of the Turkish economy, the internationalization of standards and practices, as well as for a process that is aligning Turkey ever closer to the European ideal.