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Esenler is one of the most densely populated districts in all of Istanbul, a working-class neighborhood on the European side of the city whose modern character was shaped by waves of migration from Anatolia beginning in the 1960s. Before Turkey's 1923 population exchange with Greece, the area consisted of Greek farming villages called Litros and Avas. After the exchange, Macedonian Turks settled here, and then decades of rapid urbanization brought families from every corner of Turkey, making Esenler a compressed microcosm of the whole country's regional cultures and dialects.

The district is home to Büyük Istanbul Otogar, the Great Istanbul Bus Terminal, which opened in 1994 as one of the largest bus stations in Europe.

Nearly every intercity bus route in Turkey passes through this terminal, making it the point where millions of Turks begin or end journeys to Ankara, Izmir, Trabzon, and beyond. The Ottoman heritage here is less visible than in the historic center but not absent: the Davud Pasa Barracks, sitting on the old road between Istanbul and Edirne, and a bakery built under Sultan Abdulhamid II are reminders that this road has been a gateway in and out of the city for centuries. Esenler is not a destination in the conventional sense but it is an authentic slice of how ordinary Istanbul actually lives.