Photographs of Topkapi Palace

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Topkapi Palace was the official and primary residence in the city of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years until 1856 when Sultan Abdul Mecid I decided to move the court to the newly built Dolmabahce Palace.
As you can see from the models and from the photographs taken from entrance to the Bosphorus, Topkapi Palace sits on the peninsula overlooking the Golden Horn. It is built in a series of courtyards to which different types of people would have had access. The inner most sanctum was the harem.