About Galata

Galata and Pera in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were a part of the Municipality of the Sixth Circle; all of Constantinople was in the Prefecture of the City of Constantinople 

Galata is the former name of the Karaköy neighborhood in Istanbul, which is located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn. The district is connected to the historic Fatih district by several bridges that cross the Golden Horn, most notably the Galata Bridge. The medieval citadel of Galata was a colony of the Republic of Genoa between 1273 and 1453. The famous Galata Tower was built by the Genoese in 1348 at the northernmost and highest point of the citadel. Galata is now a quarter within the district of Beyoğlu in Istanbul. 

In the eighteenth century, there were generally few Europeans in Galata. Upon the development of strong commercial ties between the Ottomans and the Europeans, Europeans once more started to settle in Galata. According to the observations of Charles White in the 1840s, affluent Turks had started to shop in Beyoğlu instead of the Grand Bazaar. Pera’s famous high street, full of hotels, entertainment venues, and shops selling European goods, gave life to the already-cosmopolitan Beyoğlu district. During the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856, the cosmopolitan nature of the district grew even further. Europeans, and especially the British, turned Galata into a port of free-trade through their practice of capitulations. By 1855 Galata, and in particular Perşembe Pazarı, Voyvoda Street, and Karaköy, had developed into the main commercial center for European goods and banks; as a result, the Greek, Armenian, and Jewish citizens living in other districts of Istanbul started to gather in Galata, and thus the ethnic structure of the city changed once more. A new cosmopolitan type, referred to as the Levantine, emerged. This period also saw a concomitant rise in the construction of new churches and synagogues in Beyoğlu.