Constantinople

Constantinople (Roman name: Constantinopolis; Greek: Konstantinoupolis) is an old name of the present city of Istanbul in Turkey. Its original name was Byzantium (Greek Byzantion).

"Constantinople" is an Anglicization of "Konstantinoupolis," which means "City of Constantine" in Greek, and was given that name in reference to the Roman emperor Constantine I when he made it the capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, 330 A.D. Constantine actually named it "Nova Roma", but that name never really got into common use. Rome retained its political and commercial privileges.

Constantinople was first the capital of the Roman Empire, then later of the Byzantine Empire, and fell to the Ottoman Empire on May 29, 1453. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital moved from Istanbul to Ankara. Ottoman people were calling their capital city by various names, including Constantinople. Istanbul became the official name as late as 1930. The name Istanbul comes from the Greek words "stin poli" which means "at the City". That was the way the Greeks used to refer to the "City of Cities", as Constantinople was known during the Byzantine era and later.