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Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is often described as the world’s oldest shopping centre, though the claim depends on how one defines the term. Construction began in 1455, shortly after the Ottoman conquest, and the complex grew steadily for four centuries as traders added covered streets and storage halls. Today it houses roughly four thousand shops along sixty or so streets, and receives an estimated quarter of a million visitors on a busy day. Despite repeated fires and two major earthquakes, much of the original stone structure survives. What has changed is the trade itself: where the bazaar once dealt largely in textiles and precious metals for a local market, most of its business now depends on tourism, and several of the traditional crafts once practised in its workshops have disappeared entirely within living memory.