Republic of Turkey Türkiye Cumhuriyeti
Flag
Anthem: İstiklal Marşı Independence March
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
Government		Parliamentary republic
-	Founder	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
-	President	Abdullah Gül
-	Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
-	Speaker of the Parliament	Cemil Çiçek
-	President of the Constitutional Court	Haşim Kılıç
Legislature		Grand National Assembly
Succession		to the Ottoman Empire
-	Treaty of Lausanne	24 July 1923
-	Declaration of Republic	29 October 1923
Area
-	Total	783,562 km2 (37th) 302,535 sq mi
-	Water (%)	1.3
Population
-	2011 estimate	74,724,269[1] (18th)
-	2000 census	67,803,927[2]
-	Density	97/km2 (108th) 239.8/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$1.073 trillion[3] (16th)
-	Per capita	$14,517[3] (64th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$778.089 billion[3] (18th)
-	Per capita	$10,522[3] (62nd)
Gini (2008)		40[4] (medium)
HDI (2011)		0.699[5] (high) (92nd)
Currency		Turkish lira[6] (TRY)
Time zone		EET (UTC+2)
-	Summer (DST)	EEST (UTC+3)
Date formats		dd/mm/yyyy (AD)
Drives on the		right
ISO 3166 code		TR
Internet TLD		.tr
Calling code		90

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace 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 is 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 East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.^[7]

Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims.^[8] The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.^[9]

Oghuz Turks began migrating into the area now called Turkey (derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, i.e. "Land of the Turks") in the 11th century. The process was greatly accelerated by the Seljuk victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert.^[10] Several small beyliks and the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion. Starting from the 13th 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 and his colleagues, organized a successful resistance to the Allies; in 1923, they would establish the modern Republic of Turkey with Atatürk as its first president.

Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with an ancient cultural heritage. Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organisations 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 joined the EU Customs Union in 1995. Turkey has also fostered close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Middle East, the Turkic states of Central Asia and the African countries through membership in organisations such as the Turkic Council, Joint Administration of Turkic Arts and Culture, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Economic Cooperation Organisation.

Turkey's location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia makes it a country of significant geostrategic importance.^[11][12][13] Given its strategic location, large economy and military strength, Turkey is a major regional power.^[13][14]

Etymology[link]

The name of Turkey, Türkiye in the Turkish language, can be divided into two components: the ethnonym Türk and the abstract suffix –iye meaning "owner", "land of" or "related to" (derived from the Arabic suffix –iyya, which is similar to the Greek and Latin suffixes –ia). 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). The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia (c. 1369).^[15] The Greek cognate of this name, Tourkia (Greek: Τουρκία) was originally used by the Byzantines to describe medieval Hungary^{[dn 1][16][page needed][17]} (since pre-Magyar Hungary was occupied by proto-Turkic and Turkic tribes, such as the Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Kabars, Pechenegs and Cumans.) Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the northern shores of the Black and Caspian seas, was referred to as Tourkia (Land of the Turks) in Byzantine sources. However, the Byzantines later began using this name to define the Seljuk-controlled parts of Anatolia in the centuries that followed the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

History[link]

Antiquity[link]

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 (Yumuktepe) are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world.^[18]

Portion of the legendary walls of Troy (VII), identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BCE.)

The settlement of Troy started 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 radiated.^[19] The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the Central Anatolia, noted at least as early as ca. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed Hattians ca. 2000–1700 BC. The first major empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the eighteenth through the 13th century BC. The Assyrians colonized parts of southeastern Turkey as early as 1950 BC until the year 612 BC, when the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Chaldean dynasty in Babylon.^[20][21] Following the Hittite collapse, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BC.^[22] 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.

The Celsus Library in Ephesus, dating from 135 AD.

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 İzmir), and Byzantium (later Constantinople and Istanbul). The first state established in Anatolia that was called Armenia by neighboring peoples (Hecataeus of Miletus and Behistun Inscription) was the state of the Armenian Orontid dynasty. Anatolia was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries BC and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC.^[23] 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.^[24]