Istanbul Famous Bridge: The Bosphorus and Galata Bridges Explained

If you have ever scrolled through photos of Istanbul, one image keeps showing up: a long suspension bridge strung with lights, stretching across dark blue water with a mosque or a palace glowing on the far shore. That is almost always the Bosphorus Bridge, and it is the single structure most people mean when they ask about the famous Istanbul bridge.

But here is the thing I tell everyone who asks me: Istanbul does not have one famous bridge, it has a small collection of them, and they tell the whole story of the city. Three of them leap right across the Bosphorus strait from Europe to Asia. One older, lower bridge stitches together the two halves of the old town across the Golden Horn, and it is the one you will actually walk on. Below I will go through each of them, with the real numbers, what makes them worth seeing, and how to get the photo you came for.

Istanbul Famous Bridges Contents

• What is the name of the famous Istanbul bridge?
• How many bridges cross the Bosphorus?
• What is the oldest bridge over the Bosphorus?
• Why is the Galata Bridge so famous?
• Can you walk across the Bosphorus Bridge?
• Why does the Bosphorus Bridge matter so much?
• What about Istanbul’s other bridges?
• What does the famous Istanbul bridge connect?
• Which bridge in Turkey looks like the Golden Gate?
• How to actually see the bridges
• Final words on the famous Istanbul bridge

What is the name of the famous Istanbul bridge?

The short answer: the Bosphorus Bridge, officially renamed the 15 July Martyrs Bridge in 2016. But Istanbul has three big bridges over the Bosphorus and a famous lower one over the Golden Horn, so the honest answer depends on which photo you saw.

The three giants over the Bosphorus went up in waves. The first opened in 1973, the second arrived in 1988, and the third is far newer, finished in 2016. Each one connects the European and Asian sides of the city, and that is exactly why they matter beyond just being big and good-looking. Crossing one of them is one of the few moments where you can say you drove from one continent to another in under a minute.

How many bridges cross the Bosphorus?

Three road bridges currently span the Bosphorus, and all three are suspension bridges. From south to north they are:

• Bosphorus Bridge (the 15 July Martyrs Bridge, also called the First Bridge), opened 1973.
• Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (the Second Bosphorus Bridge), opened 1988.
• Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (the Third Bosphorus Bridge), opened 2016.

There is also a fourth way under the water rather than over it: the Eurasia Tunnel for cars and the Marmaray rail tunnel both run beneath the strait. But for the iconic skyline shots, the three bridges are what you are looking at.

Also read: Istanbul’s most famous mosques, 12 you should know

Bosphorus Bridge

This is the one. The Bosphorus Bridge, built between 1970 and 1973, is the oldest of the three and the one you have seen lit up at night. It links the Ortaköy waterfront on the European side with Beylerbeyi on the Asian side.

The numbers are genuinely impressive: 1,560 metres long, a deck around 33.4 metres wide, with a main span of roughly 1,074 metres between the towers. The roadway sits about 64 metres above the water, high enough for large ships to pass beneath. The little Ortaköy Mosque sitting right at its European foot is the reason so many of those postcard shots line up the bridge and the mosque in one frame.

Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge

The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, the Second Bosphorus Bridge, opened in 1988 after two years of construction. At 1,510 metres it is fractionally shorter overall than the first bridge, but its main span is longer at 1,090 metres, and at 39 metres it is wider. It carries the heavy through-traffic of the trans-European motorway and links the Hisarüstü and Kavacık districts. Like the Bosphorus Bridge, it is a true suspension bridge, so the two of them look like siblings from a distance.

A nice extra detail: this bridge sits between the two great fortresses of the strait, Rumeli Fortress on the European bank and Anadolu (Anatolian) Fortress on the Asian side, the same chokepoint Mehmed the Conqueror used to cut off Constantinople in 1453.

Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge

The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, named after an Ottoman sultan, is the youngest and by far the biggest. Opened in 2016 up near the Black Sea mouth of the strait, it connects Garipçe in Sarıyer with Poyrazköy in Beykoz. The headline facts are the kind people do not believe at first: it is 2,164 metres long with a main span of 1,408 metres, its deck is 58.4 metres wide (one of the widest suspension bridges on earth), and its towers stand at about 322 metres, among the tallest bridge towers anywhere.

It also pulled off something no bridge had done before: it carries both an eight-lane motorway and a railway line on the same deck. Because it is so far north, most visitors only glimpse it from a plane window or a long Black Sea drive rather than in the centre of town.

Some of the other bridges in Istanbul

The Bosphorus bridges are not the whole story. This is a city of around sixteen million people, so there are bridges everywhere. The Golden Horn, the inlet that splits the old peninsula from Galata and Beyoğlu, has several of its own. The cable-stayed Golden Horn Metro Bridge, built between 2009 and 2014, carries the M2 metro line and a pedestrian deck between the Küçükpazar and Karaköy sides, with a station perched in the middle of the water. And then there is the Galata Bridge, which deserves its own section because it is the one you will spend real time on. For a closer look at the strait itself, my piece on a Bosphorus stroll at sunset covers the best stretches to walk.

Related post: 8 famous Istanbul places, with the questions tourists always ask

What is the oldest bridge over the Bosphorus?

The Bosphorus Bridge (15 July Martyrs Bridge) is the oldest of the three, finished in 1973. The Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge followed fifteen years later in 1988, and the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge came nearly three decades after that, in 2016. So the gap between the first and the third spans more than forty years of the city growing outward, which is partly why each new bridge had to be built further north than the last.

Why is the Galata Bridge so famous?

The Galata Bridge is famous for a completely different reason than the big three: it is the one woven into daily life. It crosses the Golden Horn between Eminönü in the old city (Fatih) and Karaköy on the Beyoğlu side, and it is alive with people in a way the motorway bridges never could be.

There has been a bridge on roughly this spot since 1845. The one standing today is the fifth, a bascule (lifting) bridge finished in 1994, around 490 metres long, with an 80-metre central section that can rise to let ships into the Horn. The T1 tram rumbles right down the middle of it. The upper deck is where you will find anglers lined shoulder to shoulder at almost any hour, pulling up mackerel, sardines and anchovies, while the lower deck is a row of fish restaurants and meyhane tables where you can sit with a plate of grilled fish and a glass of rakı as ferries slide past a few metres away.

If you only want one cheap, unforgettable bite here, walk to the Eminönü side and find the rocking boats grilling balık ekmek (fish-in-bread sandwiches). At the time of writing they run around 100 to 150 lira, and eating one while leaning on the rail watching the fishermen is about as Istanbul as it gets. For a proper sit-down version, see my guide to Istanbul’s best fish and meze restaurants. The bridge also drops you a short uphill walk from the Galata Tower, so the two pair naturally in an afternoon.

Can you walk across the Bosphorus Bridge?

No, you cannot. The Bosphorus Bridge is a motorway crossing and is closed to pedestrians, so do not plan on strolling across it. The only days it opens to people on foot are the annual Istanbul Marathon, when runners pour across the bridge between continents, which is genuinely one of the great running experiences in the world if you ever want to plan a trip around it.

The bridge you can walk freely, anytime, is the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn. So if walking on a famous Istanbul bridge is on your list, point yourself at Eminönü, not Ortaköy.

Why does the Bosphorus Bridge matter so much?

The Bosphorus Bridge is significant for reasons that go well past its size. It was the first fixed link ever built between Europe and Asia at this exact crossing, opened in 1973 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Turkish Republic. For a thousand years before that, the only way across the strait was by boat. It is also a clean, elegant piece of engineering, a gravity-anchored suspension bridge whose silhouette has become a shorthand for the city itself. When a Turkish news channel wants a single image that says “Istanbul,” this is the one they cut to.

What about Istanbul’s other bridges?

The Fatih Sultan Mehmet and Yavuz Sultan Selim bridges share the Bosphorus Bridge’s headline role, joining two continents and carrying the traffic that keeps a city this size moving. But they matter in their own right too: the Fatih Sultan Mehmet handles a huge slice of the international motorway traffic, and the Yavuz Sultan Selim was specifically built to pull heavy trucks and trains out of the city centre by routing them across the far north. The Golden Horn bridges, meanwhile, are the everyday workhorses that knit the old town to the modern districts.

What does the famous Istanbul bridge connect?

It depends which bridge you mean, and that distinction is actually the whole point. The Galata Bridge connects two parts of the same European side of Istanbul across the Golden Horn, so it links neighbourhoods. The three Bosphorus bridges do something rarer: they connect two continents, joining the European and Asian halves of Istanbul and, in a real geographical sense, Europe and Asia. Standing in the middle of one, you have one foot pointed at each continent.

Which bridge in Turkey looks like the Golden Gate?

People often say the Bosphorus Bridge resembles San Francisco’s Golden Gate, and at a glance the family resemblance is there: both are slender suspension bridges with tall towers over busy water. But they are not twins. The Golden Gate is painted that famous “international orange,” its main span is longer, and it carries pedestrians. The Bosphorus Bridge is unpainted steel grey, sits higher above the water, and has no walkway.

If you want the Turkish bridge that genuinely breaks world records, look past Istanbul to the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge over the Dardanelles, about a four-hour drive southwest. Opened in March 2022, its 2,023-metre main span made it the longest suspension bridge in the world, beating Japan’s Akashi Kaikyo. The main span length is no accident: 2,023 metres marks the centenary of the Republic in 2023. It drops the Dardanelles crossing from a ninety-minute ferry to a six-minute drive. So Turkey actually holds the current world record for suspension bridges, just not in Istanbul.

How to actually see the bridges

The best way to see the Bosphorus bridges is not from a car stuck in traffic on them, it is from the water. A Bosphorus cruise takes you right under the first two bridges with the palaces, fortresses and waterfront mansions sliding past on both banks, and it is hands down the photo you will be happiest with.

For a free version, the regular public ferries between Eminönü, Üsküdar and the Asian-side piers pass under the Bosphorus Bridge for the price of a normal transit fare. On land, the cafés along the Ortaköy waterfront put the first bridge right above you, and at golden hour it is magic. If you are chasing the light, my list of the best places to watch the sunset in Istanbul points you to the right rooftops and shorelines.

Final words on the famous Istanbul bridge

So when someone says “the famous Istanbul bridge,” they almost always mean the Bosphorus Bridge, the graceful 1973 suspension span between Ortaköy and Beylerbeyi that connects Europe and Asia. But the fuller answer is more interesting: Istanbul is a city held together by bridges, from the record-setting Yavuz Sultan Selim in the north to the fish-and-fishermen chaos of the Galata Bridge in the old town. Cross one of them on a ferry, eat a fish sandwich off another, and you will understand why this city wears its bridges like a signature.