Constantinople was officially renamed Istanbul
On this day · 28 March 1930
A 1930 Turkish postal law made the ancient city's everyday Turkish name its only official one—and refused to deliver mail addressed otherwise.
For nearly sixteen centuries the great city on the Bosporus was known to the world as Constantinople, the name given when Constantine the Great made it his Roman capital in 330 CE. Turks had long called it Istanbul in everyday speech, a contraction of a Greek phrase meaning “to the city,” but “Constantinople” remained the formal international name well into the 20th century.
That changed in the young Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923. As part of a sweeping modernisation and Turkification drive, the government pushed the world to adopt Turkish names. The decisive step came with the Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930, after which letters from abroad addressed to “Constantinople” were simply returned undelivered.
Use the city’s name, or your mail comes back.
The pressure worked quickly. Within months the U.S. State Department and other governments switched to Istanbul in their official correspondence, and the older name faded from everyday use.
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