Eyüpsultan or Eyüp is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 228 km2, and its population is 422,913 (2022). The district extends from the Golden Horn all the way to the shore of the Black Sea. Eyüp is also the name of a prominent neighborhood and former village in the district, located at the confluence of the Kâğıthane and Alibey streams at the head of the Golden Horn. The Eyüp neighborhood is a historically important area, especially for Turkish Muslims, due to the presence of the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the prominent Medinan companion (Ansar) and standard-bearer of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
View of Golden Horn
Eyüp Cemetery in 1899
View from Eyüp towards the Golden Horn painted by the Maltese 19th-century watercolour artist Amedeo Preziosi.
Eyüp Sultan Mosque
The Golden Horn is a major urban waterway and the primary inlet of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. As a natural estuary that connects with the Bosphorus Strait at the point where the strait meets the Sea of Marmara, the waters of the Golden Horn help define the northern boundary of the peninsula constituting "Old Istanbul", the tip of which is the promontory of Sarayburnu, or Seraglio Point. This estuarial inlet geographically separates the historic center of Istanbul from the rest of the city, and forms a horn shape, sheltered harbor that in the course of history has protected Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and other maritime trade ships for thousands of years.
An aerial view of Galata (foreground), the Historic Peninsula (background), and the new Galata Bridge, which straddles the Golden Horn and, connects its two shores at the point where it meets the Bosphorus (off the picture, left) and the Sea of Marmara (behind the Historic Peninsula). Seraglio Point is located at the eastern tip of the Historic Peninsula (center, left). The Princes' Islands are along the horizon, at upper left.
Seraglio Point from Pera, with the Bosphorus (left), the entrance of the Golden Horn (center and right), and the Sea of Marmara (distance) with the Princes' Islands on the horizon
The iron chain preventing a fleet from entering the Golden Horn, depicted in the 12th century Madrid Skylitzes.
Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky's "Dusk on the Golden Horn", depicting the estuary's trademark golden lights. The entrance to the Horn is in the foreground, with the Historic Peninsula (left), and Galata (right).
