Ferries in Istanbul Ferries in Istanbul The city of Istanbul is at a geographic crossroads, straddling Europe and Asia Minor, and is divided by a sea lane called the Bosphorus Strait, which joins the Black Sea in the northeast and the Marmara Sea in the southwest. This strait has played a key role in the history of the city. Boats have traversed the waters of the Bosphorus for millennia and until the opening of the first Bosphorus bridge in 1973, were the only mode of transport between the European and Asian halves of Istanbul. They continue to serve as a key public transport
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