Description:
Istanbul, Turkey. The Topkapi Palace. The exterior arcades of the Serail.
The Topkapi Palace or Topkapi Sarayi in turkish, was the residence of the Ottoman Sultans and the administrative center of the Ottoman Empire until 1853. Construction started in the XVth century (1459), six years after the conquest of Constantinople by order of Mehmed II, the Conqueror. The palace was expanded over the centuries, but lost of it's importance gradually after the XVIIth century. In 1924, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, a government decree transformed the palace into a museum.
The Topkapi Palace was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985.
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