Cihangir
Encyclopedia
Beyoglu
Beyoğlu is a district located on the European side of İstanbul, Turkey, separated from the old city by the Golden Horn...
district in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
. The neighborhood has many narrow streets, a park, and street cafes. It is located between Taksim Square
Taksim Square
Taksim Square situated in the European part of Istanbul, Turkey, is a major shopping, tourist and leisure district famed for its restaurants, shops and hotels. It is considered the heart of modern Istanbul, with the central station of the Istanbul Metro network...
and Kabataş
Kabatas, Istanbul
Kabataş is a quarter of Beyoğlu municipality in Istanbul, Turkey. It is situated on the European shore of the Bosphorus, between Beşiktaş and Karaköy.-References:* Istanbul.com - -External links:*...
. The name means 'conqueror' in Turkish and, in turn, comes from the Persian compound word Jahan + gir (جہانگير), meaning "Conqueror of the World".
History
During Byzantine times, the area of the present neighborhood was probably not settled, although there were Byzantine buildings near present-day Tophane and Fındıklı along the Bosphorus below Cihangir.During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
, the area was a forested hunting ground. It was one of the favorite places of Suleiman's son Cihangir, and after Cihangir's death, Suleiman had Mimar Sinan build a wooden mosque there overlooking the Bosphorus. The neighborhood's name comes from this mosque.
In the last half of the nineteenth century, the increasing influx of non-Ottoman Europeans into Istanbul drove up real estate prices in the nearby Pera district in Beyoğlu
Beyoglu
Beyoğlu is a district located on the European side of İstanbul, Turkey, separated from the old city by the Golden Horn...
, to which they were officially confined. Some Europeans, however, acquired land in areas outside Pera such as Tophane, Fındıklı, and Cihangir, leading to a great deal of residential development in those neighborhoods.
Starting in the 1930s, non-Muslim residents of Cihangir and the rest of Beyoğlu left or were forced out. They were replaced by Muslims from other Istanbul neighborhoods and by internal migrants from eastern Turkey. As the character of the neighborhood changed, middle-class Muslims also began leaving the neighborhood. By the 1970s, Cihangir was known as a neighborhood where Anatolian migrants lived alongside artists and intellectuals.
