Esenyurt (Turkish: [e’sen̪juɾt]) is a district of the Istanbul Province and is a part of the metropolitan municipality of Istanbul. Located in the European side of Istanbul, Esenyurt borders with Avcılar and Lake Küçükçekmece on the east, Büyükçekmece on the west, Başakşehir, Arnavutköy and TEM road on the north and Beylikdüzü and E-5 motorway on the south. The district covers an area of 2.770 hectares and has its own municipality since 1989.

With the construction boom of large residential complexes in the area in the past few years, Esenyurt benefited from a major development. It now has four cultural centres, which are Esenyurt Cultural Centre, Saadetdere Cultural Centre, Yenikent Cultural Centre and Yunus Balta Cultural Centre.

The district is mainly built on the land owned by Ekrem Ömer Paşa in the 19th century. The name Esenyurt drives from one of the land owners Eşkinoz. The area received migration from Romania and Bulgaria between 1920 and 1938, and had more recent migration mainly from Ardahan and Kars, as well as Erzurum and Artvin.

Esenyurt is a popular residential area due to the brand new properties and affordable property prices compared with Istanbul centre. Esenyurt is home to the Istanbul Esenyurt University, while being very close to Beykent University, Istanbul Arel University, Istanbul University and Istanbul Gelişim University. TUYAP Exhibition and Conference Centre is only 5km away from Esenyurt centre, while it is 26km away from the Istanbul Atatürk Airport. Shopping facilities are mainly gathered around shopping centres rather than individual shops along the streets. Esenyurt has three shopping centres, which are Eskule Shopping Centre, Torium Shopping Centre and Akbatı AVM.

Located in between Küçükçekmece and Büyükçekmece Lake, Esenyurt resides in the northern part of the city right next to Beylikdüzü. Esenyurt looks like an exemplary of a usual village in Anatolia which is poorly planned. You may expect to find very tall apartments one side and shanty houses on the other side.

Inhabited by the working class people and their families, Esenyurt’s population is highly composed of people from Eastern and North eastern side of Turkey. Like the other districts nearby, urbanization level of district is very low and that culture haven’t evolved yet.

According to many residents of the city, Esenyurt is Turkish Texas referring to crime rate of district. Harassment, seizure, robbery are couple of them which residents of the districts are having problems.

Transportation is again a problem in this part of the city. Although there is a line of metrobus passing through E-5 road, to get to any place in district requires to get on another vehicle. As a lack of design of transportation routes, again buses and dolmushes (dolmuş) get very crowded which makes it very hard to get on any of these at busy hours.