The Unofficial Citizens of Istanbul: Why Cats Hold the Key to the City's Soul
For a Reader in a Hurry: Istanbul's street cats are fed and cared for by whole neighborhoods and no single person owns them. They have lived here since Byzantine times. In the Ottoman city, residents paid liver sellers called mancacı to feed them, and Islamic tradition, which condemns cruelty to animals and regards cats as clean, gave that care a moral frame.
The city's history with its street animals also has a darker side, from the exile of its dogs to Hayırsızada in 1910 to a 2024 law that moves strays into shelters. In the court ruling that upheld that law, animals are eşya, "things." On the street, they still have names.
I never thought there was anything particularly unusual about the number of cats in Istanbul until I began seeing the reactions of visitors on social media. People filmed cats sleeping in shops, walking through restaurants, occupying chairs and approaching complete strangers. They seemed astonished by things I had grown up accepting as ordinary. I suspect many Turkish people had a similar realization. We were so accustomed to sharing our surroundings with animals that we had never thought of it as something worth explaining.
I cannot remember a day when I went out and did not stop to pet a cat. They appear at the most unexpected moments. You might be walking to school, doing your shopping, leaving work or getting into your car when a cat suddenly comes over. One may sit beside you while you wait anxiously outside a hospital. Another may approach while you are resting on a bench. They are there during the most ordinary hours of our lives and sometimes during the most difficult ones, even when a family gathers to bury someone they love.
From birth to death, cats are present in the places where life happens. People make room for them, sometimes without even noticing that they are doing it.
The international fascination with Istanbul's cats can make this relationship look like a recent social media phenomenon. The photographs and videos are appealing, and some cats have become celebrities. The animals were here long before anyone began filming them for an audience, and their place in our lives extends far beyond the picturesque streets that visitors usually see.
The documentary Kedi (2016), directed by Ceyda Torun, follows seven of these cats across Istanbul's neighborhoods. Torun, who was born in Istanbul, made the film with cinematographer and producer Charlie Wuppermann, filming close to the ground so that the camera moves at a cat's height. The film premiered at the !f Istanbul Independent Film Festival in February 2016 and reached American cinemas a year later. It went on to earn about five million dollars worldwide.
Its opening narration states the idea that runs through the whole film. In the English subtitles: "Without the cat, Istanbul would lose a part of its soul." The film catches something true about the city. Cats here hold a place of their own, somewhere between a pet and a stray in the Western sense of the word. They are familiar presences whose daily movements are known, whose personalities are discussed, and whose absence would be felt in a specific and irreplaceable way.
The Cat as the City's Pulse
Many residents believe that removing the cats would take something essential from Istanbul. This is recognition of a long coexistence, and sentiment is only a small part of it. These animals mirror the chaotic, stubbornly independent nature of the city itself.
The numbers give a sense of scale. According to the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, more than 160,000 cats live on the city's streets, and in 2025 the municipality sterilized more than 43,000 of them, twelve times the figure for 2015 (AFP via Turkish Minute, January 2026). No one has counted them precisely. What residents know is local: which cat sleeps on which step and who brings the water.
A neighborhood knows its cats in a more particular way. Someone knows which one has recently had kittens. Someone else recognizes the cat that waits outside a particular shop every morning. A bowl disappears and is replaced. A sick animal is taken to a veterinarian by a person who may never have thought of the cat as a pet.
The relationship is sometimes affectionate and sometimes complicated. Residents disagree about feeding and about where cats should sleep. A cat may be welcome inside one shop and chased away from another. Familiarity brings no guarantee that every encounter is pleasant or that every animal is safe.
If the cats disappear, part of Istanbul disappears. The thought feels true because Istanbul has grown alongside its cats across centuries of change. Each generation of the city has fed them. The cats remember, in their way, even when everything else has been rebuilt.
More Than a Pet: Healing, Meaning, and the Search for Grace
For some of the people in Kedi, a cat is the difference between despair and resilience.
A man who feeds dozens of cats every day calls the work his therapy. He says the cats give him the same calm he feels when his fingers move along his prayer beads. A woman tells the camera that she carries a great deal of pain and that the cats help her heal.
Others speak of cats as quiet spiritual companions. They believe animals absorb negative energy, ease tension, and open space where kindness is easier to give. Another person describes caring for animals as a path placed in front of them, a way of practicing generosity without expecting anything in return.
A fisherman tells a story he believes. His boat had been damaged, and a cat led him to a lost wallet full of cash that paid for the repair. He tells it as a small miracle, and the film lets him.
These explanations belong to the people who offer them. Whether an animal can absorb negative energy is beside the point. Caring for cats has become meaningful in their lives, often through years of repeated encounters. Some of these people have watched cats grow, fall ill, recover, disappear and return, and some have cared for several generations of cats in the same place.
For someone living alone, feeding a cat may give shape to the day. For a person going through a difficult period, the appearance of a familiar animal can offer comfort without requiring conversation.
The Characters Who Run the Neighborhoods
One of the strengths of Kedi is that it refuses to portray cats as a single category.
Each of the seven cats in the film has a distinct personality, shaped by the streets they inhabit.
Sarı ("yellow" or "blonde") is a working mother near the Galata Tower. She hustles the shops and cafés without apology and takes food from counters and plates. The reason comes later in the film: she has kittens waiting.
Duman ("smoke" or "mist") never begs. He waits outside an upscale delicatessen and paws at the window until someone inside notices. He is quiet, patient, and precise about what he wants. The owner eventually yields, and the staff bring him smoked meat and Manchego cheese. Like his name, he appears and disappears at the edges of attention.
Bengü (an old Turkish word meaning "eternal") lives among workshops in an industrial area, where the men who work there treat her as family. She loves to be stroked and leans into people with complete trust. The contrast between her surroundings and her softness is what makes her impossible to overlook. The word also appears in historical and literary Turkish.
Aslan Parçası ("piece of a lion") patrols a waterside fish restaurant at night and keeps it free of rats and mice. The name is earned. He takes his territory seriously. In everyday Turkish, aslan parçası is also an affectionate phrase for someone admired for strength or courage.
Gamsız means "carefree," and he lives exactly that way. Charming, mischievous, and persistent, he is a black-and-white tom who climbs balconies and decides for himself which neighbors he will visit and how he will be let in. Gam means sorrow or worry, and the suffix -sız expresses its absence. A gamsız person seems untouched by the troubles around them. The word can be affectionate, and it can also suggest someone who takes life a little too lightly.
Psikopat ("psychopath") lives in front of a busy tea house in Samatya. She pushes her mate aside to eat first and chases off any cat that comes near him. People give her space. She has become a local legend because she demands nothing from anyone and tolerates nothing she has not chosen to tolerate. A neighbor calls her the neighborhood psychopath, a title she appears to accept.
Deniz ("sea") moves through the market with the calm of someone who has been doing this for years. Deniz's name carries the geography of the city. The vendors treat Deniz as one of their own.
These names show how Turkish speakers describe animals. Some refer to appearance, and others to temperament or to qualities people recognize in one another. They are personal names, and their meanings make each animal's character part of everyday conversation. A cat called Gamsız may be discussed with the same mixture of affection and exasperation reserved for a carefree relative.
And then there is Kanyon, who belongs to a later chapter of the same story. He is a white cat with grey markings who lives at the entrance of the Kanyon shopping center in Levent, on the European side of Istanbul, and he became the building's unofficial mascot. People come specifically to see him.
In late November 2025, his bed was stolen, and then his food and water bowls (Onedio, 1 December 2025). Within hours the story was on X. Strangers brought him a new bed and toys. The public response was immediate and loud, and within days he had a more comfortable space than before. In January 2026 he appeared in an AFP story on Istanbul's street cats. The speed of the response said something about how seriously Istanbul takes the animals it considers its own. A fan now runs an Instagram page for him.
His story also shows the difference between having a home and having an owner. A street cat may have a name and a regular sleeping place, and several people may care for it, without it belonging legally to any of them. The internet has carried Kanyon to people who have never visited Levent, but the arrangement itself remains local. Someone sees him each morning, and someone notices when his bed is missing.
See Istanbul Through Its Cats
You can meet Istanbul's cats almost anywhere. For visitors who prefer a guided experience, this tour offers a closer look at the city's cat culture, including a visit to the Cat Museum.
Explore Istanbul's Cat Neighborhoods
A guided walk through Istanbul's cat culture, visiting the Cat Museum, İstiklal Street, and Maçka Park, with a cable car experience.
Honesty Without Performance
Many cultures misread cats as ungrateful. The people in Kedi give a different account.
They describe cats as honorable because they do not perform affection. They show love freely but will not fake it. One of the film's speakers puts it this way: a dog thinks its human is God, while a cat believes God provides the food and the human is only the messenger.
This is honesty about what a relationship is. Istanbul's cats accept care without becoming anyone's property, and the people who feed them accept that arrangement.
Cats seem to understand that closeness and ownership are different things, and they act accordingly. Their independence is real, although their survival on the street still depends heavily on human care.
Ships, Rats and Liver Sellers: How History Shaped the Cat City
The presence of so many cats in Istanbul is not accidental. Cats lived in this city long before the Ottomans. Bones recovered during the excavations for the Marmaray rail tunnel include cats from Byzantine Constantinople, and the osteoarchaeologist Vedat Onar has reported that they show no signs of disease and appear to have lived in good conditions (Daily Sabah, 2020).
A popular story explains the rest through the sea. Istanbul has been a port city for most of its history, and ships carried cats to protect their cargo from rats. In Kedi, an illustrator tells how ships once docked below Cihangir and their cats walked off into the city. Cihangir itself is a hillside quarter. The landings were on the shore beneath it, at Fındıklı and Tophane, with the port of Galata a short walk away. The ship story is plausible, but it is a story. No archive records the day the sailor cats came ashore.
The usual explanation for why the city kept its cats is practical. Istanbul was a city of wooden houses, granaries and warehouses, and cats kept the rodents down. Some writers add that the Ottoman sewers gave them plenty of prey. The historical record does not pin this down to a single century or a single cause. Their role as urban guardians was established long before anyone thought to romanticize them.
The record does show a culture of feeding. In Ottoman Istanbul, men known as mancacı walked the streets carrying liver and offal. Residents paid them to feed the cats and dogs of the neighborhood, often after prayers. The historian Zafer Bilgi points out that the practice is older than the Ottoman period and compares it to today's birdseed sellers (Daily Sabah/AA, February 2025).
The mancacı shows that feeding street animals was once organized through ordinary economic activity. The animals stayed on the street, outside any household's ownership, and residents could still contribute to their care by paying someone whose work was to provide food.
Religion gave this habit a moral frame. Two hadiths are central. One, recorded by both al-Bukhari and Muslim, tells of a woman who was punished because she shut a cat away until it died, giving it neither food nor freedom to find its own. It is a story about the responsibility that comes with control over an animal. Another, in the collection of Abu Dawud, says that cats are clean and that water a cat has drunk from may still be used for ablution. The famous story of the Prophet cutting off his sleeve so that his cat Muezza could keep sleeping is a different matter. It is loved and widely retold, but it does not appear in the hadith collections.
The story's popularity shows the values people attach to it, even though it is not an authenticated account. In Ottoman Istanbul, an animal might be fed because it kept rodents away, or because feeding it was an act of charity. Often it was fed because it had become familiar to the people on the street.
Books on Istanbul's Cats
City Cats of Istanbul
Photographer Marcel Heijnen captures Istanbul's street cats in shops, markets, and neighborhoods, showing their personalities and everyday lives.
Cats of Istanbul Coloring Book
A coloring book inspired by Istanbul's cats, offering a creative way to spend time with the city's familiar feline residents.
Cats of Istanbul: Coffee Table Picture Book
A picture book devoted to Istanbul's cats, bringing together feline portraits and scenes from the city they call home.
When the City Pushes Back
This picture would be incomplete without a harder section.
The majority of Istanbul's residents treat cats with the kind of casual care that has defined this city for centuries. A bowl of water left by a door, a plate of food on a step, a trip to the vet for an injured cat that belongs to no one in particular. This is ordinary life here. But a small minority acts differently, and the public response to that minority is part of the same story.
Karamürsel, May 2026
On 3 May 2026, outside a chain supermarket in the Kayacık neighborhood of Karamürsel, in Kocaeli, a 43-year-old employee called a street cat over with "Gel annem gel" ("Come here, mama") and sprayed degreaser directly into the cat's face. The cat ran under a car. She followed and kept spraying. Another woman filmed the scene, saying "Yazık hayvana" ("Poor animal"). The video spread across social media within hours. The employee was detained and then released under judicial supervision, and the chain issued a public statement announcing that the employment of those involved had been terminated (NTV, 4 May 2026). The incident drew national attention because, when cruelty like this happens, the response is always fast and fierce.
The words she used are familiar in Turkish. People often address animals with terms of endearment normally kept for children or family. Hearing such language immediately before an act of cruelty made the recording harder to watch. The public reaction brought the phrase kamu vicdanı, public conscience, back into the conversation. It names the moral response of people who believe something unacceptable has happened, a response with no legal institution behind it.
The 2024 law
A much larger debate concerns the law itself. Since 2004, Animal Protection Law No. 5199 had required municipalities to catch stray animals, sterilize and vaccinate them, and return them to the streets where they lived. A 2021 amendment made killing or torturing an animal a crime punishable by prison.
Law No. 7527, passed on 30 July 2024 and published in the Official Gazette on 2 August, replaced the release model with collection. Stray animals are to be collected, and dogs that have been treated and rehabilitated are to stay in municipal shelters until they are adopted. Municipalities must build enough shelters by the end of 2028 (Resmî Gazete No. 32620). For shelter dogs judged dangerous, incurably or contagiously ill, or of banned breeds, the law points to a provision of the veterinary law that allows them to be put down. The word ötanazi was taken out of the operative sentence during the debate, a change the opposition called a play on words. The article's heading still reads Hayvanların ötanazisi, "the euthanasia of animals." The provision itself names dogs. Cats come under the law's general rules on ownerless animals, and its registration deadline is addressed to people who own cats and dogs.
Animal rights organizations, veterinarians, and ordinary citizens protested across the country. In Istanbul, İzmir, and Ankara people took to the streets (soL, 2 June 2024; Medyascope, 28 July 2024). The main opposition party, whose mayors had won Istanbul and other large cities a few months earlier, said its municipalities would not carry out killings, and it took the law to the Constitutional Court. On 7 May 2025 the court rejected the application by majority vote. Its reasoned decision, published in December 2025, describes animals in Turkish law as eşya, things that are the objects of law and not its subjects, though it adds that they cannot be treated in the same way as other things. One justice, Engin Yıldırım, dissented. He argued that since animal cruelty became a crime in 2021, animals should be seen as subjects of the law (Cumhuriyet, 2 December 2025).
The court and the street use different words for the same animal. In the court's reasoning, the cat on the step is a thing, though one the law treats differently from other things. In the neighborhood, she has a name.
Hayırsızada, 1910
The pattern has historical depth. In the spring of 1910, two years after the constitutional revolution, under the new İttihat ve Terakki government, the municipality rounded up the city's street dogs, packed them into cages and shipped them by barge to Sivriada, a bare, rocky island off the Princes' Islands in the Sea of Marmara.
Estimates of the number range from tens of thousands to the figure most often repeated, 80,000. A book published in Paris a year earlier had put the city's whole street-dog population at about 60,000. Popular retellings add that the dogs were first held at Tophane before the barges left.
The island had no food and almost no water. The only drinking water came from a well, drawn up in petrol cans (İrvin Cemil Schick, Toplumsal Tarih no. 200, via Timeturk). By 22 June 1910, the officer in charge reported that 9,000 dogs had been delivered to him and that about three percent were dying each week. The municipality answered newspaper reports of starvation by announcing bread deliveries (Mine Yıldırım, Reflektif, 2024). In July the French magazine L'Illustration printed a full-page photograph of the dogs (bianet, 2012). Later accounts, repeated today by animal rights groups, say that residents carried food to the island for as long as they could, until the distance and the numbers made it impossible. Their howling was said to carry across the water to the Asian shore at night. A newspaper recollection published in 1946 says that the cries of the starving dogs could be heard from the city (Son Posta, 8 August 1946, cited in Yıldırım, 2024). Most of the dogs died there.
It was the third attempt. Under Mahmud II, an order to move the dogs to an island failed when storms turned the boats back and public pressure forced the sultan to withdraw it. Under Abdülaziz the dogs were taken to an island again, until a great fire that ran from Çemberlitaş to Kumkapı was read as God's punishment and the dogs were brought back.
These stories show how people understood such events in their own time. Cruelty toward animals could be read as a moral offense whose consequences reached beyond the animals themselves, and the same understanding shaped the memory of 1910.
In Istanbul's memory, the island carries the name Hayırsızada, roughly "the ill-fated island." Later retellings connect the dogs' deaths with the disasters of the following years, the 1912 earthquake and the Balkan Wars. That connection belongs to folk memory, and it shows how the city judged what had been done. A story that the dogs were first meant to be sold to France appears in some retellings, but the available historical studies do not establish this account. In the official records the name is still Sivriada. In the city's memory it is something else.
After the island
The exile did not end the killing, and it reached the cats as well. The Himaye-i Hayvanat Cemiyeti, the animal protection society founded in Istanbul in 1912, began killing street dogs and cats with gas at its clinic in Nişantaşı in July 1927. Its own report for 1929 records 3,309 dogs and 807 cats put to death "humanely" in a single year. In 1930 the figure for cats rose to 982 (Yıldırım, 2024).
These figures reveal an uncomfortable side of the history of animal protection. An institution founded in the name of animal welfare took part in systematic killing and described it in the language of public health and humane treatment.
Public conscience has rejected these campaigns again and again. It has not stopped doing so across the century that followed.
If you want to read more about the Ottoman tradition of care for street animals and how it shaped the city's culture over centuries, I've written about it in detail in my earlier post: The Ottoman Empire: A Historical Haven for Street Animals.
Turkish Vocabulary: Cats, Care, and the City
Two phrases in this essay describe the same animal from different sides. Sokak hayvanı, "street animal," is the word of the neighborhood. Sahipsiz hayvan, "ownerless animal," is the word of the law. A cat that three households feed and everyone on the street calls by name is still sahipsiz on paper. Learning when Turks use each phrase shows how the city thinks about its cats.
In everyday Turkish, people say sokak kedisi, street cat, or mahalle kedisi, neighborhood cat. The first describes where the animal lives. The second suggests a particular relationship with a place and the people who share it. A mahalle kedisi may sleep outside a bakery or visit several shops along the same street, and people may recognize it without knowing who first began feeding it.
The word sahip means owner, and the suffix -siz expresses absence, so sahipsiz records that no one owns the animal. The word mama is just as ordinary. It means prepared food for babies or animals, so Kedilere mama verdim means "I fed the cats." In a neighborhood where feeding animals is part of daily life, the sentence needs no explanation.
For readers learning Turkish, the words below appear regularly in conversations about street cats, animal welfare, and urban life in Türkiye.
Turkish | English |
kedi | cat |
sokak kedisi | street cat |
mahalle kedisi | neighborhood cat |
kedi evi / kedi yuvası | cat house, cat shelter |
kedi maması | cat food |
mama kabı | food bowl |
su kabı | water bowl |
beslemek | to feed |
korumak | to protect |
sahipsiz hayvan | ownerless (stray) animal, the legal term |
sokak hayvanı | street animal, the everyday term |
hayvan bakımevi | animal care facility, the legal term for a shelter |
barınak | shelter, the everyday term |
kısırlaştırmak | to sterilize |
hayvansever | animal lover |
hayvan hakları | animal rights |
kamu vicdanı | public conscience |
yasa / kanun | law |
ötanazi | euthanasia |
eşya | thing, object (also the legal status the court gave animals) |
gözaltı | detention |
adli kontrol | judicial supervision |
maskot | mascot |
mahalle | neighborhood |
Kamu vicdanı, public conscience, appears in Turkish media almost every time an animal welfare incident goes viral. It names the collective moral response that rises quickly and, historically, does not stay quiet.
Cat idioms worth knowing:
Kedi gibi dört ayak üzerine düşmek means to come out of a difficult situation unharmed, to land on your feet. Literally: "to fall on four feet, like a cat." The image comes from the way cats turn their bodies in the air and land on their feet. In everyday speech you will also hear dört ayak üstüne.
Kedi olalı bir fare tuttu is usually ironic. It is said of someone who rarely gets anything done and has finally managed one small thing, often with more pride than the result deserves. Literally: "since becoming a cat, it has caught one mouse." The humor depends on the expectation that catching mice is the least a cat should manage.
Kedi ciğere bakar gibi bakmak means to look at something with open longing. Literally: "to look at it the way a cat looks at liver." Liver was the treat the old street sellers carried.
Kedi ile köpek gibi describes two people who are always quarreling. Literally: "like cat and dog." The expression exists in many languages, and it suits a city where cats and dogs have shared the streets for centuries.
A Final Note
Istanbul's cats have become internationally recognizable. Their photographs circulate online and some have audiences far beyond the neighborhoods where they live. I understand the fascination, though I still find it a little strange to see something so familiar presented as an extraordinary feature of the city.
For me, it's part of everyday life. I see a cat on the street, stop to pet it, sometimes talk to him/her for a moment and then go on my way. I've done this for as long as I can remember.
If you walk through Istanbul today and a cat crosses your path, watch for a moment.
Watch how a cat claims the sun on a stone step. Watch how she/he accepts your food without losing its composure.
The historical record includes generosity and cruelty, and both belong in the story.
The city grew alongside its cats. The relationship is centuries old, and it is mutual in ways that no policy could fully account for.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Why are there so many cats in Istanbul?
A: Cats have lived in the city since Byzantine times. As a port city of wooden houses and warehouses, Istanbul needed rodent-catchers, and a long tradition of feeding street animals kept them in neighborhood life. You can read more about this tradition here.
Q: Is religion the main reason cats are treated well in Türkiye?
A: Religion is one factor. Hadiths in the major collections condemn cruelty to cats and describe them as clean animals, and this shapes attitudes in Muslim societies. The practice is also rooted in neighborhood habit and in the practical history of cats as working animals in a port city. The popular story of the Prophet cutting his sleeve for his cat Muezza is folklore and does not appear in the hadith collections.
Q: Does the 2024 stray animal law apply to cats?
A: Partly. The law's general rules on ownerless animals cover cats as well as dogs. Its two most debated measures name dogs: the euthanasia provision, and the rule that rehabilitated dogs stay in shelters until they are adopted. Its registration deadline applies to people who own cats and dogs.
Q: What happened on Hayırsızada?
A: In 1910 the Istanbul municipality shipped tens of thousands of street dogs to Sivriada, a barren island in the Sea of Marmara, where most of them died of hunger and thirst. The island is remembered as Hayırsızada.
Q: What does kamu vicdanı mean?
A: It means "public conscience." In Turkish media and public discourse, the phrase describes the collective moral response of ordinary people to acts they consider unjust or cruel. It appears often in coverage of animal welfare incidents.
Q: Are Istanbul's street cats owned by anyone?
A: Some cats have individual owners. Others live on the street and are cared for by several people. A neighborhood cat may have a name and a regular sleeping place without any legally recognized owner. Turkish marks the difference with sokak kedisi, street cat, and sahipsiz hayvan, an animal without an owner.
Q: What is the documentary Kedi about?
A: Kedi (2016), directed by Ceyda Torun, follows seven street cats through Istanbul and the people who care for them. It treats each cat as an individual with its own territory and temperament.
Q: What does mahalle kedisi mean?
A: It means "neighborhood cat," an animal familiar to the people who live or work in a particular area. Several households may care for a mahalle kedisi without any one of them owning it.
Q: Are there Turkish expressions about cats?
A: Several. Kedi gibi dört ayak üzerine düşmek means to come out of a difficult situation unharmed. Kedi olalı bir fare tuttu is said, usually with irony, of someone who has finally accomplished one small thing after a long time of doing nothing.
Sources
The documentary Kedi
Istanbul's cats today
History
Daily Sabah/Anadolu Agency, Zafer Bilgi on the mancacı, February 2025
İrvin Cemil Schick, "Büyük Köpek İtlafı," Toplumsal Tarih no. 200, 2010, via Timeturk
Mine Yıldırım, "Sürgünden İtlafa," Reflektif 5(3), 2024, also the source for the 1946 Son Posta recollection
Popular retellings of Hayırsızada: Gaia Dergi and Haytap
Law
Further reading on this site
This post contains affiliate links. I may earn a commission from qualifying purchases or bookings at no extra cost to you.
Buradaki yazıya bakılabilir: METİN MENEKŞE KEDİ EDEBİYATI/Türk Edebiyatının Kedileri ve Kedicileri / Batılı Seyyahlar Gözünden Osmanlı Kültüründe “Kediler”