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Istanbul UNESCO world heritage sites

Istanbul south-east

Topkapi Palace at Cankurtaran Mh.
The palace complex consists of four main courtyards and many smaller buildings. Female members of the Sultan's family lived in the harem, and leading state officials, including the Grand vizier, held meetings in the Imperial Council building.

Hagia Irene Mosque at Cankurtaran Mh., Topkapı Sarayı 1. Avlu
It ranks as the first church completed in Constantinople, before Hagia Sophia, during its transfiguration from a Greek trading colony to the eastern capital of the Roman Empire.

Hagia Sophia Mosque at Cankurtaran Mh., Soguk Cesme Sk. No:16
Built in 537 AD at the beginning of the Middle Ages, it was famous in particular for its massive dome. It was the world's largest building and an engineering marvel of its time.

Hippodrome of Constantine at Sultanahmet Square, Binbirdirek Mh., Sultan Ahmet Parkı No:2
The course of the old racetrack has been indicated with paving, although the actual track is some 2 m (6.6 ft) below the present surface. The surviving monuments of the Spina (the middle barrier of the racecourse), the two obelisks and the Serpentine Column, now sit in holes in a landscaped garden.

Sokollu Mehmet Pasha Mosque at Kucuk Ayasofya Mh.
The interior of the Sokollu Mehmed Pasha Mosque is famous for the İznik tiles, decorated with a wide variety of blue, red and green floral designs, with panels of calligraphy in white thuluth letters on a blue ground. The interior columns make use of polychrome marble. The minbar is made of white marble with a conical cap, sheathed in Iznik tiles. The windows above the mihrab have stained glass. Above the main entrance, framed by a gilded brass bezel, is a fragment of the Kaaba in Mecca; other fragments of this black stone are above the minbar and mihrab.

Little Hagia Sophia at Kucuk Ayasofya Cami Sk. No:20
This Byzantine building with a central dome plan was erected in the sixth century by Justinian, likely was a model for Hagia Sophia ("Holy Wisdom"), and is one of the most important early Byzantine buildings in Istanbul. It was recognized at the time as an adornment to the entire city, and a modern historian of the East Roman Empire has written that the church, "by the originality of its architecture and the sumptuousness of its carved decoration, ranks in Constantinople second only to St. Sophia itself".

Istanbul north-west

Suleymaniye Mosque at Suleymaniye Mah, Prof. Sıddık Sami Onar Cd. No:1
It is the second largest mosque in the city, and one of the best-known sights of Istanbul.

Sehzade Mosque at Kalenderhane Mahallesi, Sehzadebası Cd. No:44
The mosque is entered through a marble-paved colonnaded forecourt with an area equal to that of the mosque itself. The courtyard is bordered by a portico with five domed bays on each side, with arches in alternating pink and white marble. At the center is an ablution fountain (sadırvan), which was a later donation from Sultan Murat IV. The twin minarets have two galleries and elaborate geometric sculpture in low bas-relief and occasional terracotta inlays.

Valens Aqueduct at Kalenderhane Mah., Hasim İscan Gc.
The most visible bridge section of the aqueduct stands in Istanbul, Turkey, in the quarter of Fatih, and spans the valley between the hills occupied today by the Istanbul University and the Fatih Mosque. The surviving section is 921 metres long, about 50 metres less than the original length.

Zeyrek Mosque at Zeyrek Mah. Ibadethane Sk.
It represents the most typical example of architecture of the Byzantine middle period in Constantinople and is, after Hagia Sophia, the second largest religious edifice built by the Byzantines still standing in Istanbul.

Historic walls of Topkapi at Topkapı Mahallesi
At the beginning the city walls were used as a defence mechanism to prevent any attacks from other country. They were about six kilometers long with 27 towers spread throughout. The second set was established by the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus in 203 and located just outside the walls about some 300 meters. After, in 324 AD, Constantine the Great ordered to build the city to eastern capital, its walls were constructed some six kilometers further to the west.

Chora church at Dervisali Mahallesi, Kariye Cami Sk. No:8
The interior of the building is covered with some of the oldest and finest surviving Byzantine mosaics and frescoes; they were uncovered and restored after the building was secularized and turned into a museum.

Palace of Blachernae at Ayvansaray Mahallesi
An annex of the greater palace complex of Blachernae, it is the best preserved of the three Byzantine palaces to survive in the city (together with the ruins of the Boukoleon Palace; and the ruins of the Great Palace of Constantinople with its surviving substructures, retrieved mosaics and standing Magnaura section), and one of the few relatively intact examples of late Byzantine secular architecture in the world.