Talk:Constantinople

Page scope problems

This page has a serious problem of definition. This is apparently due to the misguided attempt at expanding its scope from the Byzantine to the Ottoman period. I can see that we discussed such an expansion back in 2019, with "no consensus" to do so, but then people went ahead and silently did it anyway. The result is an utter mess.

• This article is incoherent about what its topic is, and how its topic relates to that of the main Istanbul article. Is it an article about a phase in the history of that one city, Istanbul? Or is it meant to be an article about a city as such, which constitutes its own topic, i.e. a historic entity with a distinct identity of its own, different from modern Istanbul? It can't be both.
• If it's meant to be a history period article, then it should be clearly marked as such. It must be structured as a subarticle of History of Istanbul, within a clear WP:SUMMARY style structure. But then, it must also be merged with the History of Constantinople article, which somebody also wrote in the meantime, because evidently a history article can't have its own "history of…" article duplicating it.
• Alternatively, it could be an article about a historic city as if it were an entity in its own right. Such a construct is always somehow problematic, but we sometimes choose to do that with ancient predecessor settlements, like Londinium or Lutetia (or of course Byzantium). We very rarely do it with more modern places. To make such a construct viable, it would at the very least need a clearly motivated cut-off date – a time where the identity of a place changes so radically (in terms of urban structure, population, governance or cultural identity) that you could at least partially speak of distinct entities before and after. In the case of Constantinople, the only reasonable candidate for such a cut-off point is 1453, but most certainly not 1930. Nothing about Constantinople changed so radically in 1930 that it would justify treating the before and after in different articles as if they were different cities.
• Crucially, the 20th-century change in foreign naming habits ("Istanbul not Constantinople") doesn't constitute such a cut-off point. We structure articles by unity of topics, not by unity of names, since we are an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. "X during the time foreigners called it Y" and "X during the time foreigners called it Z" aren't sensible definitions for splitting an article topic in two.
• Of course the article as it now stands is again over-emphasizing that naming change, perpetuating that old canard that Constantinople was "renamed" to Istanbul in 1930. People, can we once and for all get rid of that nonsense? There was only one point in history when this city was "renamed", and that was in 330. The only thing that changed after 1930 was what foreigners called it. That's not a "renaming". The gradual obsolescence of the elevated-register terms "Kostantiniyye" or "Dersaadet" isn't a renaming either.
• Somebody recently tried to rescue the article by rewording the intro sentence, but in doing so only made matters worse. Now we have: "Constantinople was the historical name for the city of Istanbul, used particularly by foreigners up until 1930, located on a peninsula at the southeastern tip of Thrace in Europe". Really? The name was located on a peninsula? People, why is it so difficult to keep statements about names separate from statements about the things those names signify?
• The extension of coverage into the Ottoman period was done in an inconsistent and haphazard way. For example, the current sections on "Women in literature" and "Media" are about the Ottoman (more narrowly 19th-century) period exclusively. In contrast, the sections on "Markets", "Education", "People from Constantinople", and the architecture "see also"s ("Secular buildings and monuments" and "Churches, monasteries and mosques") are about the Byzantine period exclusively. The History of Constantinople article also treats only the Byzantine period, making the relation between these articles even more muddied.

I intend to reword the intro and change the overall scope back to the Byzantine period only.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:20, 3 July 2026 (UTC)

Constantinople was not the sole capital of the Roman Empire after 330.

The previous editor's wording made it seem that Constantinople was the "sole" capital after 330, which is completely untrue. No Edict/Document saying that Constantinople was more of a capital than Rome exists, actually for many decades Constantinople didn't even have the same institutions of Rome. The official latin name "Nova Roma" must be included, of course. This was the native name used, and it cannot be changed. Before making any edit, please have a confrontation here. Hovhovhov (talk) 11:01, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Well, the statement that it was "the" capital may have been somehow oversimplified for the first few decades after 330. But your statement, that it was "one of the capitals", was most certainly wrong for the thousand-year period following that. So which of the two versions was more wrong? Your newer version, "one of the capitals of the Roman Empire and the capital of the Byzantine Empire from 330" is sorta slightly more acceptable, but it's still: poor writing, verbose, pedantic, and creating more problems than it solves. First, its wording invites the misunderstanding that "from 330" only refers to the second of the preceding terms, "the capital of the Byzantine Empire", implying that its previous status as "one of the capitals of the Roman Empire" already held before that. Also, it much more strongly implies the notion that the "Roman Empire" and the "Byzantine Empire" were two separate empires. Not that I personally care much about that, but just wait until a horde of edit warriors descends upon that sentence in wrath, because that notion is their favourite bête noir. On the whole, I still prefer the previous wording, as being simpler, more straightforward, and of quite sufficient precision for this high-level-summary position in the lead. The details can be explained later (where we are already saying that it "became the indisputable capital city of the Roman Empire" after the fall of the West, while in the main Byzantine empire article we're saying that it "had […] entrenched itself as the empire's capital" by sometime in the 5th century).

Also, you have now three times in a row reinserted the wiki links to "New Rome". Do you listen to what people tell you, at all? Please make it a habit to do that, especially before berating others for reverting before talkpage discussion. I told you this, twice: New Rome is now a redirect back to this article, so it makes no sense to link there from here; it's a circular link. I don't care whether we say "New Rome" or "Nova Roma", or in which order; just don't freaking link to it.

Also please note that you are now at WP:3RR; any further reverting will likely get you blocked. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:57, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

"One of the capitals of the Roman Empire and the capital of the byzantine empire" does not imply that they were two different entities, but it's a largely accepted historical convention, especially considering that the article about the Byzantine Empire clearly explains that it was the continuation of the Eastern part of the Roman Empire and for most of its history of a very small part of the former Roman Empire, not of the Roman Empire as a whole, a fundamental aspect that should be mentioned to not interfere with different heritages and to tell the whole story. The latin native name "Nova Roma" must absolutely be included in the article, this is how it was baptisized, and whatever edit you want to do it should not be erased. Also no, Constantinople was not even as a capital as Rome "some decades after 330". Until 4 september 476, or 493, or 480, whatever the conventional date you prefer is, Constantinople was not the sole capital. Ravenna had just the same political value and of course Rome was de iure just as a capital as Constantinople and even more than that considering that Constantinople largely lacked many institutions that Rome had for many years.

Also I did not add the "New Rome" part in English, I added the latin translation "(Latin: Nova Roma)". That problem can simply be resolved by deleting the circular link but by leaving the name, which I will do now since we agree on this. Hovhovhov (talk) 12:12, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

Future is correct. Still reads as WP:UNDUE because that's not how most secondary and tertiary sources that I am familiar with present this information. In fact it reads as WP:OR by relying on conclusions drawn by the editor. You need to follow the process of convincing others. Brute force editing will not help you and have been combative enough already at several articles. A.Cython(talk) 17:54, 6 October 2026 (UTC)

I'm still stumbling over the reading that Constantinople must have been "one of the capitals of the Roman empire" even before 330, because the text is now saying it turned into the other thing, the "capital of the Byzantine Empire", in 330. As we don't have a better wording so far that avoids pedantry and misleading implications, I'll return it to the earlier wording once more. Howvhovhov, if you want to propose new alternatives, please propose them here on talk before inserting them in the article. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:13, 7 October 2026 (UTC)