Topkapı Palace is situated in one of the oldest parts of Istanbul; the historic peninsula bounded by the Marmara Sea, the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn inlet. It is one of the city’s most iconic buildings, covering an area of 700,000 m² on the headland known as Sarayburnu, which had been the site of the Eastern Roman acropolis. Topkapı Palace was the centre of Ottoman government, education and art for nearly four centuries, until the reign of the 31st Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid (r. 1839-1861), as well as the sultan’s official residence.
On 3 April 1924, shortly after the Republic of Turkey was established on 29 October 1923, Topkapı Palace became a museum; the first to be established in the Republican period. Today the palace and its grounds cover an area of nearly 350,000 m², excluding Gülhane Park, which was once part of the palace gardens but is now a public park. This palace, with its historic buildings, collections and nearly 300,000 archive documents, is one of the largest museum-palaces in the world.
