Until the recent past no neighbourhood of Istanbul was without its fountains, and if the districts outside the city walls and the villages along the Bosphorus are included these numbered many hundreds. Here local people obtained their drinking water, so at all times of day groups of people were to be seen waiting their turn. The city had several water systems, the largest being the Kirkcesme or Forty Fountains. Piping water from springs and constructing fountains were regarded as among the most honourable acts of charity, and no charge was made for using the water. Since, like the mosque and coffee house, fountains served as meeting places for local people, they played an important social role. Here news and gossip were exchanged, and flirtations between young people took root and flourished.

The oldest fountain to which we can put a date in the city is that next to Davut Pasa Mosque built in 1485 during the reign of Bayezid II (1481-1512), and the loveliest is the Ahmed III Fountain which stands before the Imperial Gate of Topkapi Palace on the site of a former Byzantine fountain known as Géranion. This was built in 1728/29 by Mehmed Aga, chief architect to Ahmed III (1703-173, whose reign corresponds to a period known as the Tulip Era because of the popularity of this flower in gardens and as a motif. The fountain is in the form of a miniature pavilion roofed by a lead-covered central dome and four smaller domes, which flare out into broad eaves. There are taps in each of its four faces, and at each corner is a sebil, or kiosk where drinking water was distributed in cups to passers-by. Encircling the fountain is an inscription band in letters of gold on turquoise tiles. This inscription is an ode by the poet Seyyit Vehbi praising the fountain and comparing its water to that of the holy Zemzem well near the Kaaba in Mecca.

One of the loveliest fountains outside the city walls is Tophane Fountain, built in Turkish rococo style in 1732, during the reign of Mahmud I (1730-1754) by the architect Ahmed Aga.
Originally this fountain stood in the crowded square beside Tophane quay, but the shoreline here was later filled in, so that it is now set back from the sea. Another elegant fountain is Saliha Sultan Fountain in front of Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Mosque which stands at the northern end of the Unkapani Bridge in Azapkapi on the Golden Horn.