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
Ahrida Synagogue of Istanbul Ahrida Synagogue of Istanbul Ahrida (Ohrid) Synagogue () is one of the oldest synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey. It is located in Balat, once a thriving Jewish quarter in the city. It was built by Romaniotes (Macedonian Jews), from the city of Ohrid (called 'Ahrid' in Greek) in what was then the Ottoman Empire and is now the Republic of Macedonia. Neve Shalom is said to have moved to Constantinople more than 550 years ago. Sephardi Jews arrived in the Ottoman Empire from the Iberian peninsula beginning in 1492, and soon were a larger group of Jews in population than the