Çengelköy is a neighborhood in the Üsküdar

Üsküdar

Üsküdar is a large and densely populated municipality of Istanbul, Turkey, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus. It is bordered on the north by Beykoz, on the east by Ümraniye, on the southeast by Ataşehir, on the south by Kadıköy, and on the west by the Bosphorus, with the areas of Beşiktaş,...

 district on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus, in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, between the neighborhoods of Beylerbeyi

Beylerbeyi

Beylerbeyi is a neighborhood in the Üsküdar municipality of Istanbul, Turkey. It is located on the Asian shore of the Bosporus, to the north of the Bosphorus Bridge. It is bordered on the northeast by the neighborhood of Çengelköy, on the east by Kirazlıtepe, on the southeast by Küplüce, on the...

 and Kuleli. It is mainly a residential district. Many mansions were built there in the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 period.

From the 6th century, the port of Çengelköy was called Sophianai because of the palace Justin II

Justin II

Justin II was Byzantine Emperor from 565 to 578. He was the husband of Sophia, nephew of Justinian I and the late Empress Theodora, and was therefore a member of the Justinian Dynasty. His reign is marked by war with Persia and the loss of the greater part of Italy...

 built nearby for his consort Sophia

Sophia (empress)

Aelia Sophia was the Empress consort of Justin II of the Byzantine Empire from 565 to 578. She was specifically interested in economic matters and was involved in financial matters during Justin's reign...

.

The name Çengelköy means "hook village", and indeed the village is nestled around a sharp turn of the Bosphorus shore, but the origin of the name is uncertain. One story put forward is that the village is named after the 19th-century Ottoman admiral Çengeloğlu Tahir Pasha, who had a waterside mansion

Yali (residence)

A yalı , literally "seashore, beach") is a house or mansion constructed at immediate waterside in Istanbul and usually built with an architectural concept that takes into account the characteristics of the coastal location...

 built there (and there is a Çengeloğlu Street in Çengelköy). Another story derives the name from the Persian word çenkar, "crab

Crab

True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...

," because of the abundance of seafood

Seafood

Seafood is any form of marine life regarded as food by humans. Seafoods include fish, molluscs , crustaceans , echinoderms . Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are also seafood, and are widely eaten around the world, especially in Asia...

 in the Bosphorus there. A 16th-century Ottoman document apparently refers to the place as "Çenger köyü."

Çengelköy is world-famous for the small cucumber

Cucumber

The cucumber is a widely cultivated plant in the gourd family Cucurbitaceae, which includes squash, and in the same genus as the muskmelon. The plant is a creeping vine which bears cylindrical edible fruit when ripe. There are three main varieties of cucumber: "slicing", "pickling", and...

s once grown there (now grown in Kandıra

Kandira

Kandıra is a town and district of Kocaeli Province in the Marmara region of Turkey. Its neighbours are Kaynarca to the east, Adapazarı to the southeast, İzmit to the south and Şile to the west. The mayor is Cengiz Kan .-Kerpe:...

).