Services of Street Cleaning and Washing After the Founding of Modern Municipality in İstanbul (1858-1914)

Street cleaning, one of the mandatory services for a healthy city life, is one of the basic duties of municipalities. In this work, initiation of the service of street cleaning and washing regularly and assignment of this service to private sector are analyzed after the founding of modern municipality in İstanbul.Since Istanbul capital city of the Ottoman Empire, was the door to outer world, an extra consideration had been given to city’s cleaning and aesthetic. For this reason, this service was gave out by contract to companies with separate and private deals. While in the beginning irrigation of main streets was in issue, the government has given importance to this municipality service and expense of this service had been expanded by adding new places to irrigation service. However, after a while, İstanbul Municipality Administration had started irrigation of some places by importing irrigation vehicles. First World War, like in case of many services, had caused interruption of this service for a long period.