Which neighborhoods in Istanbul have a high risk of earthquake?

Istanbul started January with another earthquake. This time it happened on 22.01.2020 in the Balykesil area with an amplitude of 4.6 points. Not to say that this is the event of the century, Turkey is constantly shaking, including Istanbul. In September 2019, Istanbul felt repeated tremors with an epicenter in Silivri. These were tremors with an amplitude of 4.7 points. Underground tremors were recorded at a depth of 5 km, the length was 20 kilometers, so residents of different districts could feel the fluctuations. The earthquake destroyed the minaret of one of the mosques, part of which collapsed, and the remaining part was strongly tilted:

The mosque whose minaret collapsed in the earthquake

Even earlier on August 17, 1999 in Izmit, Kocaeli County, which is very close to Istanbul, there was an earthquake with an amplitude of more than 7.7 points, which claimed more than 17 million lives, 25 thousand people were injured and about 600 thousand people were left without a roof over their heads.

Aftermath of the 1999 earthquake in Izmit, Kocaeli Province, Turkey (near Istanbul)

There was another major earthquake in Istanbul in the Marmara Sea area in 1766, and the city had to rebuild its infrastructure for more than 8 months. A part of the Ayia Sophia Cathedral collapsed.

The Istanbul earthquake of 1766.

Causes of frequent earthquakes.

Displacement of earthquake epicenters

The point is that the region itself is located on the North Anatolian Fault, which stretches for almost 1200 km along the bottom of the Aegean and Marmara Seas. Here the big lithospheric plates - Anatolian (which includes all of Turkey and part of Asia Minor) and Eurasian (which includes all of Europe and most of Asia) - touch each other. When the plates move, the irregularities create points of tension, resistance. The energy released creates those tremors. There's evidence that the plates are calmer now and that in previous centuries earthquakes were more frequent.

Movement of tectonic plates. North Anatolian fault (yellow line) as a zone of frequent earthquakes.

There is one segment of the Anatolian plate that moves slower than the rest and creates stress zones in the Sea of Marmara, roughly in the waters of the Princes' Islands, which is just 8 kilometers west of Istanbul.