Dolmabahçe Palace

Sultan Abdulmejid I began work on Dolmabahçe Palace in 1843 on a new luxurious palace overlooking the Bosphorus on the site of a prior palace. It is estimated that the cost of construction and furnishing the Dolmabahçe Palace was close to US $2 billion. After the Turkish revolution and the official dissolution of the Ottoman empire by decree of the new Turkish government in 1924, the ownership of the palace devolved to the Turkish state and it is operated as a museum today.