Under Ottoman rule, the city, whose population had shrunk to no more than 40,000 to 50,000 inhabitants in the final years of Byzantine rule, was revitalized and repopulated. Rebuilding proceeded on a grand scale: new palaces, great mosques with their schools, libraries, and charitable institutions, extensive bazaars and markets, improved systems of water supply, all transformed the appearance of the city. Mosques became the focal points for new residential neighborhoods. Thousands of people were relocated in the city, transferred by order of the government from all quarters of the empire. These included skilled artisans and craftsmen to assist in the immense task of reconstruction. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Istanbul was once again a thriving and populous city with over 300,000 inhabitants. The growth and expansion of the city during this period was captured and represented in different ways by contemporary Western and Ottoman mapmakers. But in no sense are these maps neutral records of appearance; rather they show the city as known, as remembered, as imagined by the different artists, illustrators, and cartographers.