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Istanbul City Trivia

Can you answer these questions about the city of Istanbul?
Try the whole series
Quiz by Aaron197
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Last updated: August 4, 2020
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First submittedDecember 11, 2019
Times taken10,097
Average score60.0%
Rating4.47
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Question
Answer
What was the most recent former name of Istanbul?
Constantinople
What was it known as before that?
Byzantium
What building was once a church, then a mosque, then a museum,
and now a mosque again?
Hagia Sophia
What former train route connected Paris and Istanbul?
Orient Express
What is the name of the biggest covered old market in the world?
Grand Bazaar
On what strait does Istanbul lie?
Bosphorus
What inlet of that strait cuts through the city of Istanbul?
Golden Horn
Which two seas are connected by that strait?
Black Sea
Sea of Marmara
What is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque commonly known as?
The Blue Mosque
What is the title of the leader of the Eastern Orthodox church that is based in Istanbul?
Ecumenical Patriarch
What is the nearest foreign capital to Istanbul?
Bucharest
What is the name of the most successful football club that is based in Istanbul?
Galatasaray
What is Istanbul's busiest airport?
Atatürk
Which Roman emperor made the city the capital of the Roman Empire in 330?
Constantine
What sultan conquered the city in 1453, making it the capital of the Ottoman Empire?
Mehmed the Conqueror
On what peninsula, starting with T, does the European part of Istanbul lie?
Thrace
What ancient trade route connected Istanbul and China?
Silk Road
What was the most popular sport during Byzantine times?
Chariot Racing
Before WWI, about 25% of people from Istanbul spoke this language. Today, it is 0%.
Greek
+14
Level 73
Jul 22, 2020
Atatürk Airport closed in 2019. Its traffic is rerouted to the new Istanbul Airport.
+9
Level 82
Jul 23, 2020
Yeah it can't be busiest with only cargo and general aviation. Atatürk airport closed for commercial flights more than a year before the museum was changed back to mosque.
+1
Level 73
Aug 19, 2020
Was just gonna comment that
+7
Level 80
Jul 23, 2020
I think that question is gonna piss off some turkish football fans haha
+4
Level 65
Aug 4, 2020
I'm a fenerbahçe fan and I approve this. Gala is better
+1
Level 68
Aug 19, 2020
Bir gün herkes Fenerbahçeli olacak
+1
Level 32
Jun 21, 2021
nice greek man
+6
Level 68
Aug 19, 2020
it hurts... "Before WWI, about 25% of people from Istanbul spoke this language. Today, it is 0%." they committed genocide. they stole our city. it really hurts bros
+8
Level 73
Aug 19, 2020
No my friend. The Empire was heterogeneous before the war and people lived everywhere. There were Turks living in Greece and Greeks in Anatolia. After the treaty of Sèvres, because Greece was occupying parts of Anatolia and fighting the resistance movement during the war of independence, it was agreed, after Turkey won, that each side take home their nationals and both parts became ethnically homogeneous, Modern Turkey hosting only Turks and Greece only Greeks. It was a war not a genocide. The winner dictates the terms.
+6
Level 78
Aug 19, 2020
Judge for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_fire_of_Smyrna ("scholars claim Turkish soldiers setting fire to Greek and Armenian homes and businesses, while pro-Turkish sources hold that the Greeks and Armenians burned their own houses to tarnish the Turks' reputation")
+1
Level 55
Aug 20, 2020
I guess everyone knows better than the people who lived and continue to live there..... Also, you should actually go to Buyuk Ada and all sorts of other places to see if this stat is true.

Hmm.. Head of the Orthodox Church is in Istanbul, but no one speaks Greek? Also, my relatives do too.....

+1
Level 61
Aug 20, 2020
My understanding is that it was a bit of both. There were population transfers (in some cases forcible, I might add), but it would be a lie to say that no one was murdered for being Greek. No one alive today can reasonably be held responsible for the transfers or the killings, but it would be denialism to say that those were just ordinary, entirely voluntary population transfers.
+3
Level 73
Sep 21, 2020
That's actually not true. Greeks were allowed to stay in Istanbul, but most left after the events of the Istanbul Pogrom in 1955 which is classified somewhat as genocide. And none of it was justified.
+1
Level 75
Nov 14, 2023
Lol there are more than 150k-200k Turks living in Western Thrace, because it was exempted from the terms you mention, as was Istanbul, Eastern Thrace, Imbros and Tenedos (or whatever you call them in turkish). The Greeks living in Turkey after the population exchange were subject to the Varlık Vergisi as well as pogroms executed on them by turkish mobs after the Turks deliberately placing a bomb on Ataturk's house in Thessaloniki and blaming it on Greeks, even though it was later revealed to be an act of Turkish agents. Turkey still oppresses Kurds, denies the Armenian Genocide and has a fascist leader. You know nothing about history.
+6
Level 43
Aug 20, 2020
My Mom was a child in Constantinople when her family was separated and forcibly removed from their home and business due to the Treaty of Lausanne in 1925. Fortunately they made it to the US alive. I've been to visit Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at the Phanar. He and the Orthodox Church continue to be under siege there. All their property has been confiscated except for a few buildings and their only seminary in Turkey on the Princess Islands has been shut down by the government. It a big deal since the Turkish government has decreed that the Patriarch must be Turkish born and educated. Now that there is no one left and no seminary there is nobody able to be to be the next Patriarch under Turkish law. Given the decision on Agia Sofia and Erdogan's fundamentalist nationalism, its only going to get worse.
+7
Level 71
Aug 19, 2020
The decision to reconvert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque is very upsetting :( I've always wanted to go to Turkey and see it. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point of doing that was. I've read that it's largely due to Erdogan's push for religious nationalism, but it also seems like a poor move not just for the many people who want to see it but also for the Turkish economy since I'm guessing they get tons of tourism from it.
+6
Level 82
Aug 19, 2020
religion is a blight on the world
+4
Level 54
Aug 20, 2020
Personally I'd rather it had stayed a museum as well, because for me it symbolised the long history of the city itself, but you can still visit it. Presumably you'd need to dress conservatively (same as many churches in Europe, it must be said) & cover your hair if you're female, but Turks are very welcoming towards visitors wanting to enter mosques. I've been to several mosques in Turkey myself & have always felt very welcome. It's a stupendously beautiful building - go & see it!
+2
Level 71
Aug 21, 2020
Oh, that's good to know at least. Thanks for the advice. Hopefully I'll get a chance to see it someday :)
+1
Level 60
Aug 20, 2020
Could you accept Bosporus without the H ? That is how we used to spell it in school and how it is on the map
+2
Level 45
Jun 2, 2022
As you should; it is derived from the Greek word Βόσπορος which is written with a P(π) not a Ph/F(φ). Πόρος means path; I assume he confused the second part of the word with that of Phosphorus (φως + φόρος) which means “that which brings (φόρος) light (φως) and is spelled with the equivalent of Ph/F in Greek (φ). So, I doubt that it’s the actual spelling in English it’s probably just an error
+3
Level 69
Aug 20, 2020
Could you please accept "Thracian" for Thrace?

(Unless you already do and I misspelled "Thracian" in my haste.)

+1
Level 39
Apr 15, 2021
Nice quiz! Greetings from Turkey!