Have you ever wondered about the answer to this question: “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?”. On this blog post we will be discussing this topic in detail.
Historically, Istanbul had many different names and one of these was Constantinople. Today, the name of the city is no longer Constantinople and if you know a bit about the history of this city, you may wonder why it is not called Constantinople anymore. Well, as you may probably guess, the simple reason behind this is that the name of the city was changed to Istanbul some time ago.
The area where Istanbul is situtated today has been an important place in history. Constantinople was the capital city of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as the Latin Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Even during the Ottoman period, Europeans referred to the city as Constantinople and the Ottomans called it Kostantiniyye, which is just another way of saying Constantinople.
Before it was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the city was a part of the Roman Empire as a whole. Constantinople was founded by Constantine I and after the split of the Roman Empire into two, the city functioned as the capital of the Eastern part.
Constantinople was named after its founder and the name of the city stayed the same for a long time. However, after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the city was renamed as Istanbul. But why is Istanbul not Constantinople anymore? If you are ready to dive in deep into this topic, let’s begin talking about why is Istanbul not Constantinople.
Table of Contents
Why is Istanbul Not Constantinople? – Historical Context
If you are wondering why is Istanbul not Constantinople, you may want to get some historical context about this topic. In the introduction part of this blog post, we briefly talked about the history of Istanbul’s name. Now let’s discuss this in a more detailed way.
Historically one of the names that this city had was Constantinople and it may be the most well-known one aside from Istanbul. Other names of the city include examples such as Lygos, Byzantium and many others.
Even before the founding of Constantinople by Constantine I, the area had some importance. During the reign of Constantine the Great, who established the city as the eastern capital of the Roman Empire, many names were used for the city as well, such as Alma Roma and Roma Constantinopolitana.
As the city was made the eastern capital of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, after his reign, people started to refer to the city as Constantinopolis. During the Eastern Roman period, the city became wealthier and more important, and at some point it became known not only regionally but by many people in various parts of the world.
With the power and wealth of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople became a very well-known name. Aside from Constantinople, other names with meanings such as the Queen of Cities and the Reigning City were used by some, too.
As Constantinople is a name that is known by many people and it was the name of the city at some period in history, you may be wondering why is Istanbul not Constantinople. In this post we will explain the reason why, but before we go further, let’s talk about why Istanbul is known by some people as Constantinople.
Why is Istanbul Known by Some as Constantinople?
One of the questions asked by some regarding Istanbul is: “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?”. But in case you only know about the current name of the city and are not aware that some people still call the city Constantinople, you may be curious why a question like “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?” is even asked.
Even though the current name of the city, Istanbul, is quite well-known, some people still refer to this city as Constantinople. And as we go further back into history, we can see that it was arguably a more common thing to do compared to today. So, why so some people think that the name of Istanbul is Constantinople?
The reason why the city was called Constantinople historically was because it was named after its founder. Being an important emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantine the Great was respected by many. Due to the power and importance of the Eastern Roman Empire, the name Constantinople was known by many and as the city’s name had been Constantinople for many centuries, it simply became a name that stuck.
The city was under the control of the Byzantines for a very long time and the Eastern Roman period is an important period in the history of the city. Since Constantinople is one of the well-known historical names of the city, some people may still be referring to Istanbul as Constantinople.
Was Istanbul Referred to as Constantinople During the Ottoman Period?
Do you wonder the answer of the question: “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?”. In the following section of this post, we will answer this question. But before we do this, let’s talk about another important period in the history of Istanbul: the Ottoman Empire period.
About this time period and the name of the city, you may be wondering if the Ottomans referred to Istanbul as Constantinople like the Europeans or not. While Europeans called the city Constantinople, or some other form of this name, people in the Islamic world referred to this city as Kostantiniyye. As you may probably guess from the similarity of this name, Kostantiniyye is just another form of Constantinople.
Being a part of the Islamic world, the Ottomans referred to the city as Kostantiniyye as well. Even after the conquest of the city by the Ottomans in 1453, Ottomans referred to it as Kostantiniyye.
Roman Empire was an important civilization and due to the great significance of this empire, many civilizations claimed to be the succession of Rome. While it may be surprising if you didn’t know about it, some Ottoman sultans claimed to be the heirs of the Roman Empire after the conquest of Constantinople, using the title Kayser-i Rum (Caesar of Rome).
So we can say that one of the reasons behind Ottomans keeping the usage of the name Kostantiniyye for the city may be that they considered themselves Roman (well, at least some sultans did).
Aside from Constantinople and Konstantiniyye, other names such as Payitaht, Dersaadet, Asitane and Deraliye were used by some for the city during the Ottoman period.
So, even though Constantinople is a name that was still used during the Ottoman period, why is Istanbul not Constantinople today? If you are ready to learn about the reason behind this, let’s discuss this in the next section…
Why is Istanbul Not Constantinople? – Here is the Basic Reason
Although it is still a fairly well-known name for the city and used by some people, why is Istanbul not Constantinople today? Well, for this, there is a simple reason: the name of the city was changed to Istanbul at some point in history.
Before the Ottoman period, the name of the city was Constantinople and Ottomans used the name Kostantiniyye for Istanbul. During those times, the city was still mainly known as Constantinople among the Europeans.
Thinking of themselves as the successors of Rome and taking pride in having Istanbul under their control, Ottoman sultans didn’t bother too much about finding another name for the city, while some other names were used for Istanbul during the Ottoman period.
While this may be surprising, the official name change of the city to Istanbul happened after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. After World War I, Ottoman Empire fell and the Republic of Turkey was established in 1923. In 1930, the name of the city officially became Istanbul, which is a word with Greek origin. To promote the use of the new official name of the city, Turkish government at that time didn’t allow letters sent to “Constantinople” to be delivered to the city.
One of the reasons behind this name change may be an effort to differentiate the Republic of Turkey from the Ottoman Empire. Today, the name of the city is Istanbul and Constantinople is not the official name of the city. So, if you have been wondering “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?”, this is basically because of the name change that happened in the early years of the Republic of Turkey.
Final Words
Istanbul is a wonderful and interesting city and you may be wondering about many things regarding this beautiful place. For instance, you may be asking things such as: “why Istanbul is not the capital of Turkey?”, which we answered in a previous post.
Regarding the name of the city, you may be asking: “why is Istanbul not Constantinople?”. At some point in history, this city was referred to as Constantinople. As we have talked about in this post, this is due to the official name change that happened in 1930. Regardless of what the name of this city is, Istanbul is an amazing city that can surely be worth visiting.