Talk:Istanbul

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Istanbul is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 23, 2019.
Article milestones Date Process Result February 11, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed August 9, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed May 26, 2012 Peer review Reviewed August 8, 2012 Featured article candidate Not promoted September 19, 2012 Featured article candidate Not promoted October 16, 2012 Featured article candidate Promoted December 26, 2020 Featured article review Demoted A news item involving this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "In the news" column on October 21, 2018. Current status: Former featured article

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Section sizes Section size for Istanbul (47 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 14,229 14,229 473 473 Names 3,802 3,802 346 346 History 6,139 30,168 298 2,144 Byzantine era 5,719 5,719 564 564 Ottoman Empire 12,405 12,405 1,045 1,045 Turkish Republic 5,905 5,905 237 237 Geography and environment 1,350 28,577 157 1,300 Earthquakes 6,028 6,028 251 251 Climate 9,177 12,394 239 324 Climate change 3,217 3,217 85 85 Water 67 67 0 0 Flora and fauna 5,933 5,933 425 425 Pollution 2,805 2,805 143 143 Cityscape 14 13,728 0 1,284 Districts and neighborhoods 109 7,376 0 575 European side 3,058 3,058 302 302 Asian side 1,205 1,205 150 150 Expansion 3,004 3,004 123 123 Parks 2,568 2,568 269 269 Architecture 3,770 3,770 440 440 Government and politics 31 16,197 0 1,004 Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality 6,046 6,046 309 309 District municipalities 2,941 2,941 117 117 Civil administration 2,093 2,093 114 114 Politics 5,086 5,086 464 464 Demographics 9,738 22,328 356 1,174 Ethnic and religious groups 12,590 12,590 818 818 Economy 10,832 10,832 683 683 Culture 6,749 15,092 611 1,353 Leisure and entertainment 8,343 8,343 742 742 Sports 15,048 15,048 635 635 Media 6,035 6,035 487 487 Education 6,579 6,579 490 490 Public services 8,241 8,241 409 409 Transportation 631 24,501 0 1,241 Roads 4,788 4,788 269 269 Public transportation 7,636 7,636 331 331 Ferries 1,722 1,722 91 91 Railroads 4,434 4,434 234 234 Airports 5,290 5,290 316 316 International relations 139 139 0 0 List of notable people 68 68 0 0 See also 289 289 0 0 Notes 24 24 0 0 References 42 19,132 0 0 Bibliography 19,090 19,090 0 0 External links 2,696 2,696 0 0 Total 237,705 237,705 13,023 13,023

FA criteria

The article needs substantial work to meet the FA criteria: better referencing (including citing the uncited content, as well as improving the quality of refs so that promotional claims are cited to independent sources), updating many sections that are out of date. There is also massive overload of images in contrary to MOS:IMAGELOC. (t · c) buidhe 21:25, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is semi-protected, and I have no intension editing such a page unprompted, so I give my oppinion here

I think an article should start with its formalities and links to other articles close to the subject.

I think the introduction should be:

Istanbul (/ˌɪstænˈbʊl/ IST-an-BUUL,[7][8] US also /ˈɪstænbʊl/ IST-an-buul; Turkish: İstanbul [isˈtanbuɫ] (About this soundlisten)), formerly known as Constantinople (previous capital of the Ottoman Empire and the Roman/Byzantine Empire and was originally Byzantium an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity, is the largest city in Turkey ...

because very important traces from very important past eras are available in the site (the past cities were not destroyed and there has been a continious development of it). The other eras are described in other articles and so these articles should be linked to immediatly this way.

After the formalities go on and put up history and other aspects of the city. The introduction should be cleaned from history things and put in a history section, becaus eof the subject it must be devided into subsections. The introduction after the first formalities should describe shortly the present city, that is an important commercial centre and large city of Turkey and Europe.

The article should describe the present city and the past eras should mainly be taken care of by links in the formalities and the history section (as they are supposed to be described there). However present day remains (sites, institutions and activeties) from the past history shsould be decribed in the article becauase they are turist attractions of the present and listed in subsections dependent on the era. As a turist I should be able to track the most important present sites dependent on my perspective in the present day city.

--Zzalpha (talk) 22:13, 7 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to remove the image of 'Colomn of Constantine', 'Statue of Atatürk in Büyükada' and 'Syrian nationals in districts of Istanbul' and 'Pera Museum in Beyoglu'. I find these ones least relevant to the article. Metuboy (talk) 12:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear that you are trying to make disinformation nationalism with adding "ancient greek.." bla bla thing. It's not allowed according to any Wikipedia policies. Look at the Gdansk article for some education. Old name of the city should be remove.

78.190.2.75 (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Article is too long

Currently at 12,639 words, needs to get below 10k. Bogazicili (talk) 20:46, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mistake: proper and colloquial pronunciations have been swapped around

At footnote [b] in the first paragraph, it says:

Turkish: İstanbul (Turkish pronunciation: [isˈtanbuɫ] ^ⓘ, colloquial Turkish pronunciation: [ɯsˈtambuɫ])

However, in the "Names" section, it says:

İstanbul (Ottoman Turkish: استانبول; pronounced [ɯsˈtambuɫ] or colloquially [isˈtanbuɫ] ^ⓘ)

Both of these cannot be listed as colloquial and proper at the same time. It seems to be that both of them were the first version originally, but one of them was edited to the second one, and the editor didn't notice that the other one had to be changed too. I'm not sure which claim is more accurate, but these should be made consistent again. Not without text (talk) 18:04, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for flagging this! I'm pretty certain the version in the initial footnote (with initial [i] vowel and medial [n] in the formal pronunciation) is the correct one. The other one was swapped earlier this year [1] by an editor who claimed to be "fixing" the pronunciation, but without further explanation or discussion. I've swapped those back. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:10, 9 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Still not convinced about climate class mention in first paragraph/lede

I am aware that I have discussed this with @Bogazicili before, which is why I'm shying away from a WP:BOLD edit, but I am still not convinced that we need a mention of Istanbul's climate class in the first paragraph of the lede, and I believe that it is actively hurting and contrasting the nuance of the climate section of the article.

Saying this, I am acknowledging per our previous discussion that per the constraints given by Bogazicili, the statement appears factual enough for Wikipedia; when using the 40mm dividing line between Cs and Cf climates (which most sources now use) Köppen would classify Istanbul as a Mediterranean climate. My intent is not to reignite that part of the debate, as I have four other issues with this wording.

1) The vast majority of city articles have nothing to say about climate in the lede, and even fewer, if any, give climate classifications. Of the 50 "core city" articles, some of which are GA class, none of them make mention of any climate classification, and 48 of them make no mention of climate or weather at all. The two that do, namely San Francisco and Nairobi, mention the especially "mild/temperate climate" of their city only, and give no more detail. I fail to see why this description of Istanbul's climate is necessary per WP:LEDE, especially as no notable or significant part of Istanbul's climate has been singled out, and instead a fact has been thrown randomly into the lede.

2) Even if we are to add something to the lede about climate, Istanbul's climate has very little to single out on a global scale anyway: its temperature is the average temperature of the world, its precipitation is just a tiny bit more than the global average over land, it has four seasons (unlike SF and Nairobi) but none of them are extreme, etc. There is nothing needing mention here.

3) Even as one concedes that under the specific conditions provided by Bogazicili Köppen would classify Istanbul as purely Mediterranean, Köppen would be alone in doing that. As noted by the sources of the climate section of this article, Trewartha puts the city in humid subtropical territory, Alisov considers the city oceanic, and Bohn considers it "sub-continental sub-Mediterranean". In no way is Istanbul a typical Mediterranean climate, in fact nobody agrees on what climate it has, and unlike somewhere like Palermo or İzmir, which are unambiguous cases, shoehorning the word Mediterranean into the lede looks about as nonsensical as when it would be done to Seattle, only because Köppen, and Köppen alone, also classifies Seattle as Mediterranean.

4) The wording of the statement ("aspects of other temperate climate types") is nonsensical when applied to Köppen, and the source contradicts other reliable sources and their guidance on Köppen. Köppen is fundamentally binary in nature: it considers no "aspects". It has set rules that determine output "letters" which are then combined into a climate type. For example "C" means "Temperate", "s" means "Dry summer", and "a" means "hot summer". Combined together "Cs" is called "Mediterranean climate" and "Csa" is called Hot-summer Mediterranean climate". It is impossible for a city to have "aspects of another climate" and not be that climate according to Köppen.

Anyway, long story short, I don't see the reason why this is necessary and find it hurts to more nuanced description later on in the article. Uness232 (talk) 04:07, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If a climate classification needs to specifically identify an authority to be understood (and even then, is it?), then I agree it's too detailed for the lead. The article does a better job in providing an understandable 'lead' with "Istanbul's climate is temperate". CMD (talk) 04:44, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would actually say that all climate classification relies on authority to be understood by definition, perhaps except for basic temperature/precipitation qualifiers backed up by reliable sources (i.e. "mild", "rainy" etc.). This is probably a good reason why mentions of climate type in city article ledes are so rare. Uness232 (talk) 09:02, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]