Istanbul: That great city

A comment on the last post made me decide to post some facts here instead of as a follow-up comment there.
Facts, Figures, and Fantasies* about Istanbul:
- The city of Istanbul is officially estimated at about 12.5 million people.
- With those numbers, the city would be approximately the 5th largest US state!
- That also makes the city larger than the two largest cities in the US combined (remember that the definition of city is ambiguous... metropolitan area and so forth).
- Unofficial statistics put the city's population between 15-25 million, which would mean that the only US state with a larger population is California!

There's more that could be added, but those figures give a reasonably good idea, especially if the linked articles are checked for more details.

*Fantasies means "unofficial facts or figures" and it starts with an f.