Constantinople or Byzantium the capital city of Byzantine Empire
Constantinople has its origin in a Greek colony Byzantium. The Roman Emperor Constantine in 324 began ancient Greek colony on the construction of what would be capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and later the capital of Byzantine Empire.
Byzantium and later Constantinople is built in a very easily defensible peninsula, overlooking the Bosphorus with a natural harbor called the Golden Horn.
The city was an industrial and commercial center located on the main trade routes, a monumental city. It was the most advanced of its time reaching nearly one million inhabitants and with large public buildings among them Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome and the Imperial Palace.
Foreign merchants had a neighborhood called Pera at the rear edge of the Golden Horn. There was built by the Genoese Galata Tower, from the port and the Bosphorus currency.
