Istanbul in the 1970s, as people from Anatolia migrated to the city to find employment in the many new factories that were built on the outskirts of the sprawling metropolis. This sudden, sharp rise in the city's population caused a large demand for housing, and many previously outlying villages and forests became engulfed into the metropolitan area of Istanbul. Istanbul is located in north-western Turkey within the Marmara Region on a total area of . The Bosphorus, which connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea, divides the city into a European, Thracian side—comprising the historic and economic centers—and an
Names of Istanbul "Constantinople" instead of "Istanbul" were no longer delivered by Turkey's PTT, which contributed to the eventual worldwide adoption of the new name. In English the name is usually written "Istanbul". In modern Turkish the name is written "İstanbul" (dotted i/İ and dotless ı/I being two distinct letters in the Turkish alphabet). "Stamboul" or "Stambul" is a variant form of "İstanbul." Greek for 'the town'. Like "Istanbul" itself, forms without the initial "i-" are attested from early on in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic sources of the 10th century and Armenian ones of the 12th. Some early sources also attest