The Blue Mosque, officially the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii), is an Ottoman-era historical imperial mosque located in İstanbul.
It was constructed between 1609 and 1617 during the rule of Ahmed I and remains a functioning mosque today. The mosque has a classical Ottoman layout with a central dome surrounded by four semi-domes over the prayer hall. It is fronted by a large courtyard and flanked by six minarets.
It also attracts a large number of tourists and is one of the most iconic and popular monuments of Ottoman architecture. Inside, it is decorated with thousands of Iznik tiles and painted floral motifs in predominantly blue colors, which gave the mosque its popular name.