Harbiye Military Museum and Cultural Site Command

Great museum ever for those fancy about machine gun, canon, missile and everything from ancient war to modern war, it’s a large museum thus you will expect to spend about 2-3 hours to finish exploring the whole museum, that not including the performance which took about half an hour. Every 3pm there will be a Performance which is free to entry, it’s a special performance and you can have a photos with all performers after the session.

Well it is one of the greatest museum I ever visited. Increadeble amount of military items some of them used in wars, some given between state officials, some belongs to famous leaders. Lots of weapons, armours and gadgets. For a military and war history enthusiast one day won't be enough to complete tour in the museum.

Very large collection of medieval (mostly Ottoman) weaponry and armor, rather difficult to navigate in chronological order. You could get a bit tired after seeing the hundredth sword. It's fine if you look for a 'quick' museum where you can be out in one hour.

It's a military museum Tickets for foreigners 100 turkish lira. The museum takes you through history of Turk and their empire era . Nice show from 15:00 to 14:00 pm Good and recommend for visiting.

Very large and old military museum. If you want to see everything and listen for the Mehter band would give in 2-3 hrs + . The size of the collection is astounding. Have swords , guns and armor from the 1200’s to WW1 period. Special exhibits on Gallipoli , WW1 and Kemal Ataturk founder of the republic on 2nd floor. Ancient arms and armor on the 1st floor. Arms are not just Turkish and Islamic but also European arms and armor from the crusades , Italian , French and German. If you are into swords must see, largest portion of the collection is probably the swords. If you are doing the metro get off at Osmanbey station and walk up to hill and turn left at the fork, will be right in front of you- 5 minutes walk . I had a hard time finding it at first.

Nice historical museum. It can take at least 2 hours to visit and see everything bc it's really big. It has 2 floors. It begins with the Middle Asia Turk history and ends with the Republic of Turkey. There are also many special rooms for Atatürk. Entrance is free for students,13 Liras for adults

Had a very informative and enlightening day here. You can buy tickets for 25 TRY per person upon entering the main building. Has a nice cafeteria nearby, quite reasonably priced.

Istanbul Military Museum (Turkish: Askerî Müze) is dedicated to one thousand years of Turkish military history. It is one of the leading museums of its kind in the world. The museum is open to the public everyday except Mondays and Tuesdays. The museum initially opened in Saint Irene Church. Later in 1950, it was moved to the First Army Headquarters building in Cumhuriyet Caddesi, Harbiye, not far from Taksim Square in Istanbul. Harbiye district (an Ottoman derivation from the Arabic word harb for warfare) was the site of the Ottoman imperial military academy, the empire's "West Point" or "Sandhurst" and is still an important military installation. A fine collection of historical weapons, uniforms and tools of various periods of the army are on display. The highlights are the magnificent campaign tents and standards. Outside the museum, interesting Ottoman cannons and mortars, a rail gun, aircraft, helicopters are on display. The military museum and culture center was renovated and reopened at its present building in 1993 with a very successful and contemporary exhibition concept. Today in 22 rooms about nine thousand pieces from the Ottoman era through World War I are exhibited, out of a total collection of fifty thousand objects. It holds striking historical treasures such as the chain that the Byzantines stretched across the mouth of the Golden Horn to keep out the Sultan's navy in 1453 during the siege of Constantinople. The east wing of the museum is used for temporary exhibitions, meetings and similar activities. On the ground floor, the display of bows and arrows in the first room is followed by sections containing the weapons and other regalia of the cavalry, curved daggers and lancets carried by foot soldiers in the 15th century, 17th century copper head armor for horses and Ottoman shields carried by the janissaries, and sections devoted to Selim I, Mehmet the Conqueror, the conquest of Istanbul, weaponry from the early Islamic, Iranian, Caucasian, European and Turkish periods. This floor also houses a

What an impressive military museum, definitely worth visiting. The signage/descriptions are very detailed and give a great summary of the displayed objects. Highly recommended. The only down side is they start closing around 4 pm, please plan spending around 3-4 hours if you love reading about history.

Very nice little museum. I didn't know it before my trip, I saw it while passing by the Istanbul Kongre Merke. The price is decent, about 1,50€.