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| Turkey | |
| | Republic of Turkey -
Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
|  |
 |
| Flag - Coat of Arms |
Motto: Yurtta Barış, Dünyada Barış
Peace at Home, Peace in the World |
Anthem: İstiklâl Marşı
The Anthem of Independence
| 
| | Location of Turkey
| Capital - Ankara
39°55′N - 32°50′E - - / - 39.917°N 32.833°E - / 39.917; 32.833 - - - |
| Largest city - Istanbul |
| Official language(s) - Turkish |
| Demonym - Turkish, Turk |
| Government - Parliamentary republic |
| Founder - Mustafa Kemal Atatürk |
| President - Abdullah Gül |
| Prime Minister - Recep Tayyip Erdoğan |
| Speaker of the Parliament - Mehmet Ali Şahin |
| President of the Constitutional Court - Haşim Kılıç |
| Succession - to the Ottoman Empire² - |
| Treaty of Lausanne - - July 24, 1923 |
| Declaration of Republic - - October 29, 1923 |
| Area
|
Total - 783,562 km2 (37th)
302,535 sq mi |
| Water (%) - 1.3 |
| Population
|
| 2009 census - ▲ - 72,561,312 [ - 1 ] - (18th³) |
Density - 92.6/km2 (108th³)
239.8/sq mi |
| GDP (PPP) - 2009 estimate |
| Total - $880.061 billion [ - 2 ] - |
Per capita - $12,476.449 [ - 2 ] -
| GDP (nominal) - 2009 estimate |
| Total - $615.329 billion [ - 2 ] - |
| Per capita - $8,723.406 |
| Gini (2005) - 38 |
| HDI (2007) - ▲ - 0.806 [ - 3 ] - (high - ) (79th) |
Currency - Turkish lira5 (TRY) |
| Time zone - EET (UTC+2) - |
| Summer (DST) - EEST (UTC+3) |
| Drives on the - right |
| Internet TLD - .tr |
| Calling code - 90 |
| 2 - - Treaty of Lausanne (1923). |
| 3 - - Population and population density rankings based on 2005 figures. |
| 4 - - Human Development Report 2007/2008, page 230. United Nations Development Programme (2007). Retrieved on 2007-11-30. |
| 5 - - The Turkish lira (Türk Lirası, TL) replaced the Turkish new lira on January 1, 2009. |
Turkey (pronounced /ˈtɝki/ - ( listen) ; Turkish: Türkiye - ), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help - ·info - ) - ) - , is a Eurasian country situated in the Anatolian peninsula, located in Western Asia, and Eastern Thrace, located in southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between Eastern Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. [ - 4 ] -
| Turks began migrating into the area now called Turkey in the eleventh century. The process was greatly accelerated by the Seljuk victory over the Byzantine Empire at the Battle of Manzikert. Several small beyliks and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol Empire's invasion. Starting from the thirteenth century, the Ottoman beylik united Anatolia and created an empire encompassing much of Southeastern Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed following its defeat in World War I, parts of it were occupied by the victorious Allies. A cadre of young military officers, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, organized a successful resistance to the Allies; in 1923, they would establish the modern Republic of Turkey with Atatürk as its first president.
| | Turkey's location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia makes it a country of significant geostrategic importance. [ - 5 ] - [ - 6 ] - Ethnic Turks form the majority of the population, with a significant minority of Kurds. The predominant religion in Turkey is Islam, and the country's official language is Turkish.
| | Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic, with an ancient and historical cultural heritage. Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, OSCE and the G-20 major economies. Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the European Economic Community since 1963 and having reached a customs union agreement in 1995. Turkey has also fostered close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the Middle East and the Turkic states of Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Economic Cooperation Organization. Given its strategic location, large economy and army, Turkey is classified as a regional power [ - 7 ] - by political scientists and economists worldwide.
| |
| | 2.1 - Antiquity -
| | 2.2 - Turks and the Ottoman Empire -
| | 2.3 - Republic era -
| | 4 - Foreign relations -
| | 6 - Administrative divisions -
| | 7 - Geography and climate -
| | 9 - Demographics -
| | 9.1 - Language -
| | 9.2 - Religion -
| | 11 - Sports -
| | 12 - See also -
| | 13 - Notes -
| | 14 - References -
| | 15 - Further reading -
| | 16 - External links -
| | 16.1 - Government -
| | 16.2 - Public institutions -
| | 16.3 - General information -
| | 16.4 - Other -
| - Etymology - |
| | Names of Turkey
| | The name of Turkey, Türkiye in the Turkish language, can be divided into two components: Türk, which means "strong" or "mighty" in Old Turkic [ - 9 ] - and usually signifying the inhabitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish or Turkic peoples, [ - 9 ] - a later form of "Tu–kin", a name given by the Chinese to the people living south of the Altay Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BCE; [ - 10 ] - and the abstract suffix –iye (derived from the Arabic suffix –iyya, but also associated with the Medieval Latin suffix –ia in Turchia.
| | The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an autonym is contained in the Orkhon inscriptions of the Göktürks (Celestial Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century CE). The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia (c. 1369). [ - 10 ] -
| - History - |
| | History of Turkey
| | - Antiquity - |
| | History of Anatolia
|
| 
| | Portion of the legendary walls of Troy (VII), identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BC)
| | The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited regions in the world. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to Pottery Neolithic), Nevalı Çori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacılar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world. [ - 11 ] -
| The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continued into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European, Semitic and Kartvelian languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated. [ - 12 ] -
| |
| | The Celsus Library in Ephesus, dating from 135 AD.
| | The first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the eighteenth through the thirteenth century BC. The Assyrians colonized parts of southeastern Turkey as far back as 1950 BC until the year 612 BC, when the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Chaldean dynasty in Babylon. Following the Hittie collapse, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE. [ - 15 ] - The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia. The Lydians and Lycians spoke languages that were fundamentally Indo-European, but both languages had acquired non-Indo-European elements prior to the Hittite and Hellenistic periods.
| | Starting around 1200 BC, the coast of Anatolia was heavily settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. Numerous important cities were founded by these colonists, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna (modern Izmir), and Byzantium (later Constantinople and Istanbul). Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the sixth and fifth centuries BC and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC. [ - 16 ] - Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms (including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamum, and Pontus), all of which had succumbed to the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC. [ - 17 ] -
| | In 324, the Roman emperor Constantine I chose Byzantium to be the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it New Rome (later Constantinople and Istanbul). After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). [ - 18 ] -
| - Turks and the Ottoman Empire -
Main articles: Turkic migration, History of the Turkish people, Seljuk Empire, and Ottoman Empire
| |
| | The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power (ca. 1680).
| | The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kınık Oğuz Turks who in the 10th century resided on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy. [ - 19 ] - In the 11th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards the eastern regions of Anatolia, which eventually became the new homeland of Oğuz Turkic tribes following the Battle of Manzikert (Malazgirt) in 1071.
| | The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate; which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire that covered parts of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia and Southwest Asia. [ - 20 ] -
| | In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve over the next 200 years into the Ottoman Empire, expanding throughout Anatolia, the Balkans and the Levant. [ - 21 ] - In 1453, the city of Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II, marking the abolition of the Byzantine Empire.
| | During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire was among the world's most powerful political entities, controlling territories on three continents. The empire's power and prestige peaked under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Ottoman Empire often clashed with the Holy Roman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for control of Central Europe. [ - 6 ] - At sea, the empire contended with the combined forces (known as Holy Leagues) of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Venice and the Knights of St. John for the control of the Mediterranean basin. In the Indian Ocean, it frequently confronted Portuguese fleets that threatened the Ottoman monopoly over the ancient maritime trade routes between East Asia and Western Europe.
| | After nearly a century of decline, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. After the defeat, the Ottoman Empire was being partitioned by the Allied Powers. On March 1918, the Democratic Republic of Armenia has been established, which is the present Republic of Armenia. The Armenians, who are now a nation, have recognized together with other nations that during this war, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were exterminated in an Armenian Genocide [ - 22 ] - [ - 23 ] - [ - 24 ] - [ - 25 ] - . Although the deaths of Armenians may have been confirmed by investigation, the Republic of Turkey defends that Turkish people have died during this time as well. The Republic of Turkey claims that the Armenian deaths were not caused by exterminations and denies the Armenian Genocide by strongly condemning the use of the word Genocide. The most common hypothesis for the high amount of deaths of Armenian people is the ones blaming either the Turkish authorities or the Armenians, however there is also the hypothesis that foreign powers have provoked and arranged a war between the Turkish People and Armenian People or even took part in this event. Nevertheless, not enough factual evidence has been provided to this time in order to support any of these propositions, which is why there is a huge controversy throughout the world. [ - 26 ] - [ - 27 ] - [ - 28 ] - [ - 29 ] - [ - 30 ] -
| - Republic era -
Main articles: History of the Republic of Turkey and Atatürk's reforms
|
| | Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey
| | The occupation of İstanbul and İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. [ - 6 ] - Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. [ - 5 ] -
| | By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were expelled, and the new Turkish state was established. On November 1, the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in the new capital of Ankara. [ - 6 ] -
| | Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first President of Turkey and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past. [ - 6 ] - According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific surname "Atatürk" (Father Turk) in 1934. [ - 5 ] -
| | Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II but entered on the side of the Allies on February 23, 1945, as a ceremonial gesture and in 1945 became a charter member of the United Nations. [ - 33 ] - Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large-scale U.S. military and economic support. [ - 34 ] -
| | After participating with the United Nations forces in the Korean conflict, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Following a decade of intercommunal violence on the island of Cyprus and the Greek military coup of July 1974, overthrowing President Makarios and installing Nikos Sampson as dictator, Turkey invaded the Republic of Cyprus in 1974. Nine years later the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was established. Turkey is the only country to recognise the TRNC. [ - 35 ] -
| | The single-party period ended in 1945. It was preceded by a tumultuous transition to multiparty democracy over the next few decades, which was interrupted by military coups d'états in in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. [ - 36 ] - In 1984, the PKK began an insurgency against the Turkish government; the conflict, which has claimed over 40,000 lives, continues today. [ - 37 ] - Since the liberalization of the Turkish economy during the 1980s, the country has enjoyed stronger economic growth and greater political stability. [ - 38 ] -
| - Government and politics -
Main articles: Politics of Turkey, Constitution of Turkey, and Elections in Turkey
| |
| | The Grand Chamber of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara
| | Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. [ - 39 ] - Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state.
| | The head of state is the President of the Republic and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections. Abdullah Gül was elected as president on August 28, 2007, by a popular parliament round of votes, succeeding Ahmet Necdet Sezer. [ - 40 ] -
| Executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers which make up the government, while the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and decrees with the constitution. The Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals for all others. [ - 41 ] -
| |
| | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has twice been elected Prime Minister since 2002, and his party won 47% of the votes in the 2007 general elections
| | The prime minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in the government and is most often the head of the party having the most seats in parliament. The current prime minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose conservative AKP party won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the 2002 general elections, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage. [ - 42 ] -
| | In the 2007 general elections, the AKP received 46.6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament. Although the ministers do not have to be members of the parliament, ministers with parliament membership are common in Turkish politics. In 2007, a series of events regarding state secularism and the role of the judiciary in the legislature has occurred. These included the controversial presidential election of Abdullah Gül, who in the past had been involved with Islamist parties; [ - 44 ] - and the government's proposal to lift the headscarf ban in universities, which was annulled by the Constitutional Court, leading to a fine and a near ban of the ruling party. [ - 45 ] -
| | Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933, and every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. As of 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in the country. [ - 46 ] - The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether. [ - 47 ] - [ - 48 ] -
| | There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a four-year term by a party-list proportional representation system from 85 electoral districts which represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (İstanbul is divided into three electoral districts, whereas Ankara and İzmir are divided into two each because of their large populations). To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties winning at least 10% of the votes cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. [ - 46 ] -
| | As a result of this threshold, in the 2007 elections three parties formally entered the parliament (compared to two in 2002). [ - 49 ] - [ - 50 ] - However, because of a system of alliances and independent candidatures, seven parties are currently represented in the parliament. Independent candidates may run; to be elected, however, they also must win at least 10% of the vote in their circonscription. [ - 46 ] -
| - Foreign relations -
Main articles: Foreign relations of Turkey and Accession of Turkey to the European Union
|
| | Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005
| 
|
| | Turkey is a founding member of the OECD and the G-20 major economies
| | Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992) and the G-20 major economies (1999). On October 17, 2008, Turkey was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. [ - 51 ] - Turkey's membership of the council effectively began on January 1, 2009. [ - 51 ] - Turkey had previously been a member of the U.N. Security Council in 1951–1952, 1954–1955 and 1961. [ - 51 ] -
| | In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a founding member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the European Union) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, became an associate member of the Western European Union in 1992, reached a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun formal accession negotiations with the EU since October 3, 2005. [ - 52 ] - The accession process will likely take several decades, as cultural and political disagreements between the EU and Turkey persist. [ - 53 ] -
| | The other defining aspect of Turkey's foreign relations has been its ties with the United States. Based on the common threat posed by the Soviet Union, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, ensuring close bilateral relations with Washington throughout the Cold War. In the post-Cold War environment, Turkey's geostrategic importance shifted towards its proximity to the Middle East, the Caucasus and the Balkans.
| | The independence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union in 1991, with whom Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia. [ - 54 ] - The most salient of these relations saw the completion of a multi billion dollar oil and natural gas pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, as it is called, has formed part of Turkey's foreign policy strategy to become an energy conduit to the West. However, Turkey's border with Armenia, a state in the Caucasus, remains closed following its occupation of Azeri territory during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
| - Military -
|
| | A KC-135R-CRAG Stratotanker of the Turkish Air Force refueling TAI-built F-16 fighter jets
| | The Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions. [ - 56 ] -
| | The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the U.S. Armed Forces, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel serving in its five branches. [ - 57 ] - Every fit male Turkish citizen otherwise not barred is required to serve in the military for a time period ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, dependent on education and job location. [ - 58 ] - Turkey does not recognise conscientious objection and does not offer a civilian alternative to military service. [ - 59 ] -
| Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. [ - 60 ] - A total of 90 B61 nuclear bombs are hosted at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force. [ - 61 ] -
| |
| | MEKO 200 TN type frigates of the Turkish Navy in formation
| | In 1998, Turkey announced a program of modernization worth US$160 billion over a twenty year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles. [ - 62 ] - Turkey is a Level 3 contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. [ - 63 ] -
| | Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia and former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the U.S. stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001. [ - 57 ] - [ - 64 ] - In 2006, the Turkish parliament deployed a peacekeeping force of Navy patrol vessels and around 700 ground troops as part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the wake of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict. [ - 65 ] -
| | The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the president and is responsible to the prime minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to the parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the parliament. [ - 56 ] - The actual commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff General İlker Başbuğ since August 30, 2008. [ - 66 ] -
| - Administrative divisions - |
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