Walk on the City Walls of Istanbul

Surrounding the Historical Peninsula and standing as the greatest architectural structure of the current-day city, the walls of Istanbul constitute a major part of the cultural heritage of the city. The construction of the walls, parts of which are also included on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, started in the first quarter of the 5^th century; with various additions and repairs in different eras, this line of defense was able to protect the capital of the Byzantine Empire for approximately 11 centuries. The walls are considered among the most important examples of the Roman and Byzantine military architecture surviving to the present day, and a large part of these 24-kilometer-long walls remains today, with 244 towers and 61 gates still standing. However, urbanization and other human activities, along with natural processes and disasters such as earthquakes, have slowly caused the walls to lose some of their original qualities, and thus these threatened monuments are in danger of perishing.