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The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultanahmet Camii) is a mosque in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire (from 1453 to 1923). The mosque is famously known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior.
The mosque was built between 1609 and 1616 by order of the Sultan Ahmed I, after whom it is named.

The mosque became known in the west as the Blue Mosque because of the predominantly blue coloring of paintwork of the interior. However this blue paint was not part of the mosque's original decor so it is being removed. Today the interior of the mosque does not strike the visitor as being particularly blue.
The architect of the Sultan Ahmed, Sedefhar Mehmet Aga, was given a mandate to spare no expense in creating the most magnificent and beautiful place of Islamic worship in the world. The basic structure of the mosque is a near-cube, measuring 53 by 51 metres. As is the case with all mosques, it is aligned so that when worshippers perform the Salah (Islamic prayers), they are facing Makkah (Mecca), with the mihrab or prayer niche in front of them.