Current Time in Zeytinburnu, Turkey

Zeytinburnu is a district of Istanbul on the European side of the city, occupying a stretch of the Sea of Marmara shore immediately beyond the great Theodosian land walls that once defined the limits of Constantinople. The name means olive cape, a reminder of the groves that covered these slopes before the district was built up. The setting is a gently rising shelf of land between the coastal road and the ridge inland, with wide views across the Marmara towards the Princes Islands and the Asian shore.

Around two hundred and eighty thousand people live in Zeytinburnu, which is one of the more densely populated districts of a city of some sixteen million. Its character has been shaped by industry and migration. For centuries the shoreline quarter of Kazlıçeşme was the centre of leather tanning for Istanbul, a trade regulated by guilds since Ottoman times and carried on here until the works were moved to Tuzla in the 1990s. The district later became a hub of textile and clothing manufacturing, and it remains an important centre of wholesale trade in garments and shoes.

Zeytinburnu was among the first areas of Istanbul to grow through mass internal migration, receiving Turkish families from the Balkans in the middle of the twentieth century and then large numbers of people from Anatolia. The result is an unusually mixed population, with communities of Balkan, Anatolian, Turkmen and, more recently, Central Asian and Middle Eastern origin, and the district's markets and restaurants reflect that variety.

Its most distinctive attraction is the Merkezefendi complex, centred on the tomb and mosque of a sixteenth century Sufi sheikh who served as chief physician at the Ottoman court. Beside it the municipality has created the Zeytinburnu Medicinal Plants Garden, a beautifully laid out botanical collection devoted to healing plants and traditional medicine, with a museum, greenhouses and a herbarium. The nearby Seyyid Nizam and Balıklı sites, the historic Armenian and Greek cemeteries and the ancient spring at Balıklı add further layers of history.

The Theodosian walls run along the district's northern edge, and the Yedikule fortress and the surviving market gardens beneath the ramparts, cultivated continuously for well over a thousand years, are among the most remarkable survivals in the city. The Kazlıçeşme open ground has become a venue for major concerts and public events, and the coastal park offers cycling and walking paths beside the sea.

Transport is excellent. The T1 tram line, the Marmaray suburban railway beneath the Bosphorus, metro line M1 and the coastal highway all pass through, putting the historic peninsula and the airport within easy reach. The Olivium shopping centre, one of the earliest outlet malls in Turkey, stands close to the tram.

Schools, vocational colleges and several private university faculties operate in the district, with Istanbul's major universities nearby.

Zeytinburnu is significant as a working, multicultural Istanbul district where Ottoman heritage, industrial history and contemporary city life sit side by side just outside the ancient walls.