Istanbul travel guide by district
From the domes of the old city to the ferries crossing the Bosphorus and the cafés of Kadıköy. Learn Istanbul’s central districts, find the places worth traveling for, and get to know the city in ten short sections.
- Population
- About 15.7 million (province, 2024)
- Area
- About 5,340 km² (province)
- Districts
- 39 districts (ilçe), 21 mapped here
- Language
- Turkish
- Founded
- As Byzantium, about 660 BC
- Best months
- April to June and September to October
Twenty-one districts, two continents
Sarıyer
Wooden waterfront mansions, fish restaurants at Rumelifeneri and Rumeli Hisarı, plus the towers of Maslak and part of the Belgrad Forest.
From Sarıyer on the Black Sea to Kadıköy on the Sea of Marmara, on both shores of the Bosphorus. Select an area to read it, then play the map and try finding all twenty-one. Istanbul has 39 districts in all; twelve of these line the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn and hold nearly every sight a visitor comes for, and nine more fill the European side west to Esenyurt, so the map runs unbroken from the old city to the far suburbs.
A little Istanbul before you go
Geography & significance
One city on two continents.
The Bosphorus strait runs about 30 kilometers from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, cutting the city in two. Roughly two thirds of its people live on the European side and the rest on the Asian shore around Üsküdar and Kadıköy. Every ship leaving Black Sea ports in Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia has to pass the Bosphorus, one of the busiest straits in the world. Tankers and freighters thread past palaces and ferries through bends as narrow as 700 meters.
The Golden Horn is a curved inlet that branches off the Bosphorus and splits European Istanbul into the old city and Beyoğlu. Its calm water made one of the finest harbors in the Mediterranean world, and a chain was stretched across its mouth in wartime. Atatürk moved the capital to Ankara in 1923, but Istanbul kept the ports, factories, banks and universities. Migrants from across Anatolia made it a city of more than fifteen million, home to nearly a fifth of all Turks.
Commonly asked2 questions
- Why is Istanbul said to stand on two continents?
- The Bosphorus strait runs about 30 kilometers from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, cutting the city in two. Roughly two thirds of its people live on the European side and the rest on the Asian shore around Üsküdar and Kadıköy.
- What makes the Bosphorus so important to shipping?
- Every ship leaving Black Sea ports in Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia has to pass the Bosphorus, one of the busiest straits in the world. Tankers and freighters thread past palaces and ferries through bends as narrow as 700 meters.
The places you came to see
Hagia Sophia
Justinian’s 6th-century church, now a mosque, with its vast dome and Byzantine mosaics. Visitors enter the upper galleries outside prayer times.
Fifteen landmarks, museums, parks and waterfront stops. Essential is our starting shortlist for a first visit; worth a detour helps you go further. These are editorial priorities, not visitor-number rankings.
Keep going one place deeper
When you have had your fill of Istanbul, the country around it has a guide of its own, and so does the language you will hear on its streets.
District boundaries: OpenStreetMap contributors. ODbL. District boundaries retrieved September 2026, simplified for display. Twenty-one of the city’s 39 districts are shown. This learning map is not a survey or a boundary authority. Boundary source and license. Guide references: Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Go Türkiye: Istanbul, Metro Istanbul. Check official attraction sites for current admission and access details. Photographs are from Wikimedia Commons and credited on each one.