Constantinople became a great center of business and trade because of its physical location. This city is located on 2 continents: Europe and Asia. The European part is on the very Southeastern Balkan Peninsula, and the Asian part is part of the Anatolian Peninsula(Asia Minor). During Roman times, it was a large trading center and the Silk Road greatly contributed for hundreds of years. It became the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, which lasted until the year 1453! In that final year, Turks who been moved in the 1200s from their original home in Northwestern China by Genghis Khan had gotten out of control and formed an Empire stretching from Austria to Greece; Turkey to Iraq; Egypt to Saudi Arabia, and was called the Ottoman Empire. By the 1600s, the crumbling Byzantine capital had become the Ottoman capital and had been transformed from dying ruins into a great center of trade, learning, architecture, philosophy, and culture. After the collapse of the Ottomans in 1918, the country of Turkey was formed and the city was once more renamed as "Istanbul".