Current Time in Şişli, Turkey

Şişli is one of the central districts of Istanbul, occupying the ridge on the European side of the city that rises north of Taksim Square and runs towards the business towers of the Bosphorus hinterland. It is entirely urban, a dense grid of apartment blocks, office buildings, shopping streets and small parks, with neighbourhoods including Nişantaşı, Osmanbey, Mecidiyeköy, Bomonti, Kurtuluş, Feriköy and Harbiye.

Around three hundred thousand people are officially registered as residents, but the daytime population is far larger, since Şişli is one of the main commercial centres of Turkey. Banks, media companies, advertising agencies, hospitals and the wholesale garment trade are concentrated here, and Mecidiyeköy is a key node of the city's business district. For fashion, Şişli is unrivalled: the boutiques of Nişantaşı are the most prestigious in the country, while the textile workshops and showrooms of Osmanbey supply buyers from across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Until the nineteenth century this was open countryside outside the city, used for vineyards, cemeteries and summer retreats. As Istanbul grew beyond Pera, wealthy Ottoman officials and the Armenian, Greek, Jewish and Levantine communities built apartment houses along the new avenues, and the district acquired the elegant European appearance it still partly retains. Kurtuluş, formerly Tatavla, was a largely Greek neighbourhood, and traces of that past remain in its churches and bakeries. In 1949 the modernist Şişli Mosque was completed, and in the decades after, rapid migration from Anatolia transformed the district into a dense metropolitan centre.

The best-known sight is the Atatürk Museum, the house where the founder of the Turkish Republic lived and worked before the War of Independence, preserved with his belongings. Harbiye contains the Military Museum, where the historic Ottoman janissary band performs daily concerts, and the Cemil Topuzlu open-air theatre, a favourite summer concert venue. The Cevahir shopping centre is among the largest in Europe, and the former Bomonti brewery, Istanbul's first, has been converted into a cultural and nightlife complex. Nişantaşı's streets, familiar to readers of Orhan Pamuk, who grew up here, are pleasant simply to walk.

Şişli's atmosphere is cosmopolitan and fast-moving. Restaurants range from meyhane taverns in Kurtuluş serving Greek and Armenian dishes to contemporary Turkish kitchens, and the district has a long tradition of theatres, cinemas and publishing houses. Historic Armenian, Greek and Catholic cemeteries and churches record the layered communities that built it.

Transport is excellent. The M2 metro line runs beneath the main avenue with stations at Osmanbey, Şişli-Mecidiyeköy and Gayrettepe, connecting to the airport metro and to the Marmaray and metrobus networks, so the whole city is easily reached. Şişli Etfal Hospital, founded in 1899, and several private universities and long-established schools give the district an educational role as well.

Şişli shows modern Istanbul at its most energetic, a district of commerce, fashion and history layered within a few square kilometres.