Beyoğlu

Beyoğlu (Turkish:) is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 9 km (3.5 sq mi), and its population is 225,920 as of 2022. It is on the European side of Istanbul, Turkey, separated from the old city (historic peninsula of Constantinople, today known as the Fatih district) by the Golden Horn.

Beyoğlu was historically known as Pera and was originally established in the Byzantine period. It was initially known as Sykai (Fig Orchard) or Peran en Sykais (The Fig Field on the Other Side), referring to the other side of the Golden Horn, opposite to the historical peninsula of Constantinople. The name was eventually shortened as Péra (Greek: Πέρα) which means "across" or "beyond" in Greek.

Pera, which also encompasses the citadel and port of Galata, grew significantly in the Middle Ages, when it was a colony of the Republic of Genoa between 1273 and 1453. The names "Pera" and "Galata" were used interchangeably in European sources and maps of the medieval period (e.g., the Podestà of Galata was also referred to as the Podestà of Pera), but in the following centuries, the name Galata (today known as Karaköy, a quarter within the Beyoğlu district) began to refer specifically to the port area and the adjacent neighbourhoods within the medieval Walls of Galata, while Pera (Beyoğlu) began to define the wider district, including the neighbourhoods that are further inland and outside of the citadel's walls. The Walls of Galata were largely demolished in the 19th century for enabling northward urban growth, but surviving portions of the citadel's walls still exist.

In the 19th century, Beyoğlu's population was largely composed of foreigners of European origin, including Catholic Levantines, along with local Christians and Jews. Several events in the 20th century have led to the emigration of the district's ethnic and religious minorities, mainly to Europe and North America. These events included the deportation of Armenians during World War I, which resulted in what numerous historians have defined as a genocide; the Law numbered 2007, passed on 11 June 1932, during the Great Depression, which banned foreigners from practicing certain professions in Turkey, in order to increase the number of available jobs for Turkish citizens (the ban was lifted with Article 35 of the Law numbered 4817 passed on 27 February 2003); the 1942 wealth tax during World War II, which was levied with much higher rates on non-Muslims; the Istanbul pogrom in 1955, which targeted the city's ethnic Greek population; the expulsion of Istanbulite Greeks without Turkish citizenship in 1964–1965, after Turkey and Greece came to the brink of war in 1964 over violent clashes in Cyprus (some of the remaining Greeks with Turkish citizenship decided to leave a decade later when Turkey invaded northern Cyprus in response to the 1974 Cypriot coup d'état supported by the Greek military junta for unifying the island with Greece); and the Turkish military coups of 1960, 1971 and 1980 (the latter two were triggered by the political violence between the far-left and far-right militant groups in Turkey throughout the 1970s, which had a devastating impact on the country's political system and economy). In these periods of turmoil and uncertainty, many residents of Beyoğlu decided to move to the less crowded and more secure districts and neighbourhoods of Istanbul. They were largely replaced by low-income workers from Anatolia who moved to Istanbul in the 1960s and 1970s for seeking employment opportunities in the city and began to settle in the side streets of Beyoğlu. This large-scale population movement led to the decay of numerous historic buildings between the 1960s and 1990s, some of which remained vacant for decades.

Urban renewal projects and gentrification in Beyoğlu started in the 1980s and 1990s. The restoration of the district's historic buildings, the pedestrianization of İstiklal Avenue and the reintroduction of the nostalgic trams in 1990, the opening of new restaurants, patisseries and cafés (as well as the revival of historic ones), and cultural events such as the Istanbul Film Festival have restored the previous charm of Beyoğlu, and many middle-income and high-income residents returned to the district, while real estate prices skyrocketed. Present-day Beyoğlu is one of the main centers for cultural activities, leisure and entertainment in Istanbul, with a vibrant night life.

The district encompasses numerous quarters and neighbourhoods, including Galata (modern-day Karaköy), Tophane, Cihangir, Şişhane, Tepebaşı, Tarlabaşı, Dolapdere and Kasımpaşa, and is connected to the old city center across the Golden Horn through the Galata Bridge, Atatürk Bridge and Golden Horn Metro Bridge. Istanbul's iconic İstiklal Avenue and Taksim Square are also located in the Beyoğlu district.