Istanbul Istanbul Istanbul (, or or ; ), historically known as Byzantium and before 1924 as Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country's economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus strait (which separates Europe and Asia) between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side. The city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (coterminous with Istanbul Province), both hosting a population of around 15
Strait of Tartary empires. Since the Manchus' rise to prominence in 1644, the name "Tartars" became applied to them as well, and Manchuria (and Mongolia) became known to the Europeans as the "Chinese Tartary". Accordingly, when La Pérouse charted most of the strait between Sakhalin and the mainland "Chinese Tartary" in 1787, the body of water received the name of the Strait (or Channel, or Gulf) of Tartary. In Japan, the strait is named after Mamiya Rinzō, who traveled to the strait in 1808 whereof the name was introduced by Philipp Franz von Siebold in his book "Nippon: Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan"