The annual Tulip Festival in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey, attracted on Monday flocks of people to the city's parks and gardens to enjoy a colorful sea of flowers featuring unique designs by botanists.

Some 7.5 million flowers of 160 different species, such as tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and muscaris, have been planted in Istanbul's parks, gardens and streets for the 2022 festival.

The Emirgan Park, one of the largest public parks in Istanbul, has distinguished itself as the main hub of the festival by virtue of its more than 3.5 million bulbous plants on display.

Outstanding floral designs in the park, located on a hill along the European coast of the Bosphorus Strait, include a giant tulip stream, a traditional Turkish evil eye bead, and a Turkish flag.

During the Ottoman era from 1718 to 1730, the mass production of tulips was seen as a symbol of the prosperity of the empire. The period, known as the Tulip Era, also witnessed the enlightenment of the Ottomans through extensive cultural and artistic interactions with the rest of the world, mainly the Europeans.

It is worth noting that the Netherlands gradually became the new hub of tulips only after the end of the Tulip Era of the Ottoman Empire.

In 2005, the Istanbul municipality started an initiative to expand the production of different tulip species in Turkey, and launched the first Tulip Festival.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of this year's festival on Sunday, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said tulips had a "tremendous" journey of thousands of years from the east to the west.

Arjen Uijterlinde, consul general of the Netherlands in Istanbul who also joined the ceremony, said the continuation of the festival will contribute to social and international interaction of cultures as it contains several cultural and artistic events, such as workshops, performances, talks and a photo contest.

The 2022 Tulip Festival in Istanbul will run until Thursday.

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