Boğaziçi (Istanbul) Boğaziçi (Istanbul) Boğaziçi is the general term, specific to İstanbul and overlapping administrative divisions, used to denote those parts of the city with view of the Bosphorus. The respective nuances of the two terms (the strait itself and the urban area of Boğaziçi) being somewhat similar to those between San Francisco Bay and the Bay Area, they are not used interchangeably in correct parlance. The term Boğaziçi is used with particular emphasis relating to those parts of İstanbul which are situated north of the Golden Horn (Haliç), starting with the district of Beşiktaş on the European side of the Bosphorus.
Names of Istanbul popular speech, the most common way of referring to it came to be simply "the City" (Greek: "hē Polis", , Modern Greek: "i Poli", η Πόλη). This usage, still current today in colloquial Greek and Armenian (Պոլիս, pronounced "Polis" or "Bolis" in the Western Armenian dialect prevalent in the city), also became the source of the later Turkish name, "Istanbul" (see below). "Kostantiniyye" (Arabic, Persian , "Qusṭanṭīniyya", Ottoman Turkish , "Ḳosṭanṭīnīye") is the name by which the city came to be known in the Islamic world. It is an Arabic calqued form of "Constantinople", with an Arabic ending meaning 'place