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
Strait of Hormuz highly important strategic location for international trade. The opening to the Persian Gulf was described, but not given a name, in the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", a 1st-century mariner's guide: In the 10th17th centuries AD, the Kingdom of Ormus, which seems to have given the strait its name, was located here. Scholars, historians and linguists derive the name "Ormuz" from the local Persian word "Hur-mogh" meaning date palm. In the local dialects of Hurmoz and Minab this strait is still called Hurmogh and has the aforementioned meaning. The resemblance of this word with the name of the Persian god