Istanbul Province Istanbul Province Istanbul Province (), also the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality ("İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi") is a province of Turkey. It has an area of and is located in the Marmara region in the north-west of the country, bordered by Tekirdağ Province to the west and Kocaeli Province to the east. The Bosphorus Strait between the Black Sea to the north and the Sea of Marmara to the south divides Istanbul Province into European and Asian sides, which makes it one of only two transcontinental provinces in Turkey, along with Çanakkale Province. Istanbul Province has a population of 14,804,116 as of 2016,
Istanbul Islam") was sometimes colloquially used to refer to the city, and was even engraved on some Ottoman coins, but the belief that it was the precursor to the present name, "İstanbul", is belied by the fact that the latter existed well before the former and even predates the Ottoman conquest of the city. The name "İstanbul" (, colloquially ) is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase (pronounced ), which means "to the city" and is how Constantinople was referred to by the local Greeks. This reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The