CONSTANTINOPLE  or  ISTANBUL

Which is it?

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    Despite the general belief worldwide that the word, Istanbul, is Turkish, the reader would be well informed to know that, as a matter of fact, the word is Greek.  Similar to the custom of residents of San Francisco and of New York who refer to their large urban areas as "the City," the Byzantines did exactly the same.  Not only do San Franciscans call it "the City," they also constantly call South San Francisco [their southern industrial neighbor], simply, "South City."  City-bound  suburbanite  New Yorkers or San Franciscans,  when asked where are they going,  more likely will respond: "to the City."
 

    These are the exact same words a Byzantine would utter in Greek when responding to the same question.  Namely, "ees-teen Pohleen" or "to the Polis" (that is, to the City, or to Constantinople).  The refined elegance and euphony of the Greek enunciation deteriorated under the brusqueness of the language of the substitute occupants of Constantinople and became what we hear today, the grotesque "is-tan-bool."

Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America

NEW BYZANTIUM is The AMERICAS
 We are sincerely pleased you have come to visit our Site and we extend to you our warmest greeting in the highest tradition of BYZANTIUM.  Our Principal goal is to impart to you heretofore intentionally little known facts about BYZANTIUM as the foundation of Western Civilization.  We will avoid knowingly withholding the truth as an aim to social disorientation.  Practice of historical deception must cease.  We hope that you will enjoy our contribution to the fullest.  Welcome.
Constantine the Great began his eventful climb in York, England and reached the apex of his achievement in Constantinople, the City that he founded and named after himself (Constantine+Polis [city]=Constantinople).  By means of these pages, our readers travel through time, touching upon the early periods, including that of Constantine, of historical Constantinople, and of Hagia Sophia—the nexus of the Christian world—to arrive at places and events of our present day.  Our readers reach the outermost limit to which both Eastern and Western Christian groups expanded, bringing forth the flower of Western Civilization.  That limit is the Western Hemisphere as a whole, and in particular the coast of California near San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where the two groups converged  as they approached from the North and from the South.