Istanbul
08 AUGUST 2007 -- ISTANBUL, TURKEY: Turkish families walk through Kanyon, an upscale shopping mall in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey is a secular nation, but it's people are well over 90 percent Moslem. Although Turkish women enjoy freedoms unheard of in other Moslem countries, many still choose to wear the headscarf to show respect for their religion. Istanbul, a city of about 14 million people, and the largest city in Turkey, straddles the Bosphorus Straits between Europe and Asia. It is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was once the center of the Eastern Roman Empire and was called Constantinople, named after the Roman Emperor Constantine. In 1453, Mehmet the Conqueror, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, captured the city and made it the center of the Ottoman Turkish Empire until World War I. After the war, the Ottoman Empire was dissolved and modern Turkey created. The capitol was moved to Ankara but Istanbul (formerly Constantinople) has remained the largest, most diverse city in Turkey. Photo by Jack Kurtz
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