Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Turkey shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Turkey offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Turkey at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Turkey? Wrong! If the Turkey is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Turkey then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Turkey? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Turkey and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Turkey wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Turkey then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Turkey site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Turkey, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Turkey, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

{{Infobox Country or territory|native_name = Türkiye Cumhuriyeti|conventional_long_name = Republic of Turkey|common_name = Turkey|national_motto = Yurtta Sulh, Cihanda Sulh
Peace at Home, Peace in the World|national_anthem = İstiklâl MarşıThe Anthem of Independence]|latd=39 |latm=55'48.00 |latNS=N |longd=32 |longm=50 |longEW=E|largest_city = Istanbul|area_rank = 37th|area_magnitude = 1 E11|percent_water = 1.3|population_estimate = 71,158,647 |population_estimate_year = 2007|population_estimate_rank = 17th³|population_census = 67,803,927 |population_census_year = 2000|population_density_km2 = 93 |population_density_sq_mi = 240 ] Hürriyet: 2007 yılına hızlı girdik, seçime rağmen 410 milyar dolarlık olduk|GDP_nominal_rank =17th|GDP_nominal_year = 2007 Q1 (January-March)|GDP_nominal_per_capita = $5,561|GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank = 69th|HDI_year = 2006|HDI = 0.7574|HDI_rank = 92nd4|HDI_category = medium|Gini = 38|Gini_year = 2005|Gini_category = medium|currency = Turkish new lira5|currency_code = TRY|time_zone = EET|utc_offset = +2|time_zone_DST = EEST|utc_offset_DST = +3|cctld = .tr (1923).|footnote3 = Population and population density rankings based on 2005 figures.|footnote4 = UN Nations HDI Report, page 284|footnote5 = The [Turkish new lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) replaced the Turkish lira on 1 January 2005.-->Turkey (), known officially as the Republic of Turkey (), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and the Balkans region of southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest, Greece to the west, Georgia (country) to the northeast, Armenia, Azerbaijan (the Nakhichevan exclave), and Iran to the east, Iraq and Syria to the southeast. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the Black Sea to the north. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara, which is used by geographers to mark the border between Europe and Asia, thus making Turkey transcontinental country.

Because of its strategic location astride two continents, Culture of Turkey has a unique blend of Eastern world and Western culture tradition. A powerful regional presence in the Eurasian landmass with strong cultural and economic influence in the area between the European Union in the west and Central Asia in the east, Russia in the north and the Middle East in the south, Turkey has come to acquire increasing strategic significance.

Turkey, a Developed country#CIA developed country list, is a democracy, secular state, unitary, constitutional republic whose Politics of Turkey was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West while continuing to foster relations with the Eastern world.

Etymology The name for Turkey in the Turkish language, Türkiye, can be divided into two words: Türk, which means "strong" in Old Turkic language and usually signifying the inhabitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish people or Turkic peoples, a later form of "tu-kin", name given by the China to the people living south of the Altay Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BCE; and the Arabic grammar#Nisba -iye (derived from Arabic language), which means "owner" or "related to". The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an exonym and endonym is contained in the Orkhon script of the Göktürks (Sky Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century CE). The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin "Turchia" (c. 1369).

History Pre-Turkic History of Anatolia , identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BCE)The Anatolian peninsula (also called Asia Minor), comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world due to its location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to Pottery Neolithic), Nevali Cori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacilar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European languages, Semitic languages and South Caucasian languages languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite language and Luwian language languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated. in Ephesus, dating from 135 CEThe first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th centuries BCE. Subsequently, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria, Lycia and Urartu. 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 civilization periods.

The west coast of Anatolia was meanwhile settled by the Ionians, one of the Ancient Greece. The entire area was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. Anatolia was subsequently divided among the Lysimachus, Antigonid dynasty and Seleucid Empire, and later among a number of small Hellenistic civilization (including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, Attalid dynasty, Pontus and Kingdom of Armenia), all of which had succumbed to Roman Empire by the mid-1st century BCE. In 286 CE, Diocletian made Nicomedia (present-day İzmit) the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire with the Tetrarchy system, which remained in force until Licinius was defeated by Constantine the Great at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324 CE. Constantine mainly resided in Nicomedia as his interim capital city for the next six years, until in 330 CE he declared the nearby Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it as New Rome. After Constantine's death in 337 CE, Nova Roma was eventually renamed as Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Following the permanent division of the Roman Empire between the two sons of Theodosius I in 395 CE, the city became the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Turks and the Ottoman Empire , built in 1575 in Edirne, is the masterpiece of the greatest Ottoman architect Sinan and one of the most beautiful examples of Turkish architecture.

Historically, Turkic people have lived and left their influence throughout many parts of Eurasia. They have consistently maintained a policy of assimilation, by absorbing the different cultures that they conquered into their own culture, and maintaining many of the useful ideas and influences of the conquered cultures. Turkish political history began with the creation of the powerful Huns, which was able to expand its borders from Eastern Turkestan and Central Asia to Central Europe and Western Europe under the command of Attila.

After the Huns, until 1040 a series of states founded by various Turkic tribes rose to prominence and consequently collapsed due to invasions from other Turkic tribes. One group in particular was the Seljuks, a branch of the Kınık Oghuz Turks who, in the 9th century, resided on the periphery of the Muslim history#Abbasids, north of the Caspian Sea and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy. In the 10th century, the Seljuks migrated from their homelands in Central Asia into the eastern Anatolian regions.Following their victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks permanently settled in Anatolia, giving rise to the Sultanate of Rûm which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire. During the time of the Seljuk dominance, there were two other prominent Turkish states, the Kara-Khanid Khanate and Ghaznavids who became unified under Seljuk rule. In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongol Empire and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.

The Ottoman Empire interacted with both Eastern world and Western culture cultures throughout its 623-year history. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was among the world's most powerful political entities, often locking horns with the powers of eastern Europe in its steady advance through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following Decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, and was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious Allies of World War I sought the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire through the Treaty of Sèvres.

Republican era , founder and first President of the Republic of TurkeyThe occupation of Istanbul and Occupation of İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 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. By September 18 1922, the occupying armies were repelled and the country saw the birth of the new Turkish state. On November 1, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 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 Ankara.

Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first president and subsequently introduced Atatürk's Reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past. The Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks) in 1934.

Turkey entered World War II on the side of the Allies of World War II on February 23, 1945 as a ceremonial gesture and became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945. Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a Greek Civil War, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the Turkey-United States relations 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 US military and economic support.

After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean Sea. Following a decade of Cypriot Civil War on the island of Cyprus and the subsequent Athens-inspired Turkish invasion of Cyprus#Greek military coup of July 1974, Turkey Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established, but was recognised only by Turkey.

Following the end of the Single-Party Period of Republic of Turkey in 1945, the Multi-Party Period of Republic of Turkey witnessed tensions over the following decades, and the period between the 1960s and the 1980s was particularly marked by Right-wing and left-wing armed conflicts (Republic of Turkey) that resulted in military coup d'états 1960 Turkish coup d'état and 1980 Turkish coup d'état, and coups by memorandum in 1971 Turkish coup d'état and 1997 Turkish coup d'état. The liberalization of the Turkish economy that began in the 1980s changed the landscape of the country, with successive periods of high growth and crises punctuating the following decades.

Government and politics Turkey is a parliamentary system representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secular state. Constitution of Turkey 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 List of Presidents of Turkey and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a seven-year term by the parliament but is not required to be one of its members. The last President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was elected on May 16 2000, after having served as the President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey. He was succeeded on August 28 2007 by Abdullah Gül. Executive (government) is exercised by the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey and the Council of Ministers of Turkey which make up the government, while the legislature 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 Legal System in the Republic of Turkey with the constitution. The Turkish Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals of Turkey for all others. in AnkaraThe Prime Minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government and is most often the head of the List of political parties in Turkey that has the most seats in parliament. The current Prime Minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose conservative Justice and Development Party (Turkey) won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the Turkish general election, 2002, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage. In the Turkish general election, 2007, AKP received 46.6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Ministers have to be members of the parliament, but in most cases they are (one notable exception was Kemal Derviş, the Minister of State in Charge of Economy following the financial crisis of 2001; he is currently the president of the United Nations Development Programme).

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 List of political parties in Turkey, whose ideologies range from the far left to the far right. The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatism, or ban their existence altogether.

There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a five-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 that win at least election threshold cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. As a result of this threshold, only two parties were able to obtain that right during the elections of 2002. Independent candidates may run; however, they must also win at least 10% of the vote in their circonscription to be elected.

Foreign relations , İsmet İnönü and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OSCE (1973) and the G20 industrial nations (1999).

In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the European Economic Community (predecessor of the EU) 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 European Union-Turkey Customs Union with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun Accession of Turkey to the European Union with the EU on October 3 2005. It is believed that the accession process will take at least 15 years due to Turkey's size and the depth of disagreements over certain issues.These include disputes with EU members Greece and the Republic of Cyprus over Turkey's 1974 military intervention to prevent the islands annexation to Greece. Since then, Turkey does not recognize the essentially Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus as the sole authority on the island, but instead supports the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

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 volatile Middle East. As well as hosting an important American base near the Syrian/Iraq border for US operations in the region, Turkey's status as a secular democracy and its positive relations with Israel made Ankara a crucial ally for Washington. In return, Turkey has benefitted from the United States political, economic and diplomatic support, becoming a strong proponent of its membership of the European Union. However, in recent years relations have been strained by the ongoing Iraq War. Facing strong domestic opposition in Turkey, a government motion to allow U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's border failed to reach the necessary majority. A primary concern for Turkey was an independent Iraqi Kurdistan arising from a destabilised Iraq; it has previously fought an insurgent war on its own soil, in which an estimated 37,000 people lost their lives, against the Kurdistan Workers Party (listed as a terrorism organization by Kurdistan Workers Party/States Listed as Terrorist, including the U.S. and the EU). The United States reluctance to threaten the relative stability of northern Iraq by launching operations agains the PKK led the Turkish parliament to authorise a cross border military operation in 2007. BBC: Turkish MPs back attacks in Iraq

The post cold war environment also provided Turkey with opportunities to establish new relations. The indepedence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union, with whom Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia. . The most salient of these relations saw the completion of a multi billion dollar oil and 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, relations with other former communist states have been tense. The border with Armenia remains closed following its occupation of Azeri territority during the Nagorno-Karabakh War U.S. Department of State: Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Armenia: Respect for Human Rights. Section 1, a.. Relations with Armenian have been further strained by the controversy surrounding the forced deportations and related deaths of hundrends of thousands of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Armenia and its diaspora, backed by a number of historians, claim the events constitued a genocide. The Turkish government rejects the genocide label, instead stating the deaths were a result of disease, famine and inter-ethnic strife

Military of the Turkish Air Force refueling Turkish Aerospace Industries-built F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jetsThe Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Turkish Army, the Turkish Navy and the Turkish Air Force. The Turkish Gendarmerie and the Turkish 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.

The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed forces in NATO, after the Military of the United States, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel serving in its five branches.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.23 (2005) Every fit heterosexual male Turkish citizen is required to serve in the military for time periods ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, depending on his education and job location (Sexual orientation and military service have the right to be exempt, upon their own personal request).

In 1998, Turkey announced a program of modernization worth some United States dollar31 billion over a ten year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.22 (2005) Turkey is also a Level 3 contributor to the F-35 Lightning II (JSF) program, gaining an opportunity to develop and influence the creation of the next generation fighter spearheaded by the United States. is a Salih Reis (MEKO) class frigate of the Turkish NavyTurkey 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 War in Afghanistan (2001–present) and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.23 (2005) 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 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

The Turkish military has traditionally held a powerful position in Turkish politics, considering itself the guardian of Turkey's secular democracy. It has several times within the last decades forcibly removed elected governments believed to be straying from the principles of the state as established by Atatürk and enshrined in the constitution. Turkey's army defends secularism ahead of elections- Yahoo! News, Monday 27 August 2007

The Chief of the Turkish 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. The actual Commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt, who succeeded General Hilmi Özkök on August 26 2006.

Regions, provinces, and districts The capital city of Turkey is Ankara. The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. The provinces are organized into 7 Regions of Turkey for Census#Turkey purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.

Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this are the provinces of Hatay Province (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli Province (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya Province (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are İstanbul (+10 million), Ankara Province (+4 million), İzmir Province (+3.4 million), Konya Province (+2.2 million), Bursa Province (+2.1 million) and Adana Province (+1.85 million).

The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Turkey, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, İzmit, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 67% of Turkey's population live in urban centers. In all, 12 cities have populations that exceed 500,000, and 48 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Major cities:

• İstanbul - 9,085,599
• Ankara - 3,540,522
• İzmir - 2,732,669
• Bursa - 1,630,940
• Adana - 1,397,853
• Konya - 1,294,817
• Gaziantep - 1,009,126
• Antalya - 936,330

(Population figures are given according to the 2000 census)

Geography and climate near Fethiye in the Turkish RivieraThe territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mile) long and 800 km (500 mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 783,562 UN Demographic Yearbook, accessed April 16, 2007 square kilometres (300,948 square mile), of which 755,688 square kilometres (291,773 sq mi) are in Southwest Asia and 23,764 square kilometres (9,174 sq mi) in Europe, thus making Turkey a transcontinental country. Turkey's area makes it the world's List of countries and outlying territories by total area country, and is about the size of Metropolitan France and the United Kingdom combined. Turkey is encircled by seas on three sides: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest.

The European section of Turkey, in the northwest, is Eastern Thrace, and forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country, Anatolia (also called Asia Minor), consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, between the Köroğlu and East-Black Sea mountain range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey has a more mountainous landscape, and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras River, and contains Lake Van and Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at 5,165 metres (16,94 foot (unit of length)).

Turkey is geographically divided into seven regions: Marmara Region, Turkey, Aegean Region, Turkey, Black Sea Region, Turkey, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey, East Anatolia Region, Turkey, South Eastern Anatolia Region, Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea Region, Turkey. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately one-sixth of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward. is the highest peak in Turkey at 5,165 m (16,946 ft)Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcano eruptions. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the geologic fault running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. There is an earthquake fault line across the north of the country from west to east, which caused 1999 İzmit earthquake in 1999.

Turkey has a Mediterranean temperate climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet and cold winters, though conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the interior of Turkey a continental climate with distinct seasons. The central Anatolian Plateau is much more subject to extremes than coastal areas. Winters on the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of −30 Celsius to −40 °C (−22 °Fahrenheit to -40 °F) can occur in the mountainous areas in the east, and snow may lie on the ground 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures generally above 30 °C (86 °F) in the day. Annual precipitation (meteorology) averages about 400 millimetres (15 inch), with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall frequently is less than 300 millimetres (12 in). May is generally the wettest month, whereas July and August are the most dry.

Economy financial district in IstanbulThe CIA classifies Turkey as a Developed country#CIA developed country list. CIA World Factbook Turkey is a founding member of the OECD since 1961 and is also a member of the G20 industrial nations which brings together the 20 largest economies of the world.

For most of its republican history, Turkey has adhered to a quasi-statism approach, with strict government controls over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. However, during the 1980s, Turkey began a series of reforms, initiated by Prime Minister Turgut Özal and designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market economy-based model. The reforms spurred rapid growth, but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year), and 2001, resulting in an average of 4% gross domestic product growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. Lack of additional reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread political corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak List of banks in Turkey sector and increased macroeconomics volatility.

Since the economic crisis of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Derviş, inflation has fallen to single-digit numbers, investor confidence and foreign investment have soared, and unemployment has fallen. Turkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatization of publicly-owned industries, and the liberalisation of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate. in AnkaraThe GDP growth rate for 2005 was 7.4%, thus making Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. The agricultural sector accounts for 11.9% of GDP, whereas industrial and service sectors make up 23.7% and 64.5%, respectively. The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2005, there were 24,124,501 Tourism in Turkey to the country, who contributed 18.2 billion USD to Turkey's revenues. Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are construction, automotive industry, electronics and textiles.

In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1 2005, the Turkish lira was replaced by the Turkish new lira by dropping off six zeroes (1 YTL= 1,000,000 TL). As a result of continuing economic reforms, inflation has dropped to 8.2% in 2005, and the unemployment rate to 10.3%. With a per capita GDP (Nominal GDP) of 5,062 USD, Turkey List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita in the world in 2005. In 2004, it was estimated that 46.2% of total disposable income was received by the top 20% income earners, while the lowest 20% received 6%.Turkey's main trading partners are the European Union (59% of exports and 52% of imports as of 2005), the United States, Russia and Japan. Turkey has taken advantage of a European Union-Turkey Customs Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In 2005, exports amounted to 73.5 billion USD while the imports stood at 116.8 billion USD, with increases of 16.3% and 19.7% compared to 2004, respectively. For 2006, the exports amounted to 85.8 billion USD, representing an increase of 16,8% over 2005. The most recent figure for exports is 100.1 billion USD as of September 2007.

After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), Turkey succeeded in attracting 8.5 billion USD in FDI in 2005 and is expected to attract a higher figure in 2006. A series of large privatizations, the stability fostered by the start of Accession of Turkey to the European Union, strong and stable growth, and structural changes in the banking, retail, and telecommunications sectors have all contributed to a rise in foreign investment.

Demographics in Istanbul's cosmopolitan Beyoğlu districtAs of 2005, the population of Turkey stood at 72.6 million with a growth rate of 1.5% per annum. The Turkish population is relatively young, with 25.5% falling within the 0–15 age bracket. According to statistics released by the government in 2005, life expectancy stands at 68.9 years for men and 73.8 years for women, with an overall average of 71.3 years for the populace as a whole.

Education in Turkey is compulsory and free from ages 6 to 15. The literacy rate is 95.3% for men and 79.6% for women, with an overall average of 87.4%. This low figure is mainly due to prevailing feudal attitudes against women in the Arab- and Kurdish-inhabited southeastern provinces of the country.

Article 66 of the Constitution of Turkey defines a "Turk" as anyone who is "bound to the Turkish state through the bond of Turkish nationality law"; therefore, the legal use of the term "Turkish" as a citizen of Turkey is different from the ethnic definition. The majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish people. Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds in Turkey, Circassians, Roma people, Arabs in Turkey and the three officially-recognized minorities (per the treaty of Lausanne) of Greeks in Turkey, Armenians in Turkey and Jews in Turkey. There are also small populations of Levantines#Etymology, mostly of Italian and French descent, in Istanbul and Izmir. The largest non-Turkic ethnicity is the Kurds, a distinct ethnic group traditionally concentrated in the southeast of the country. Minorities other than the three official ones do not have any special group privileges, and while the term "minority group" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, it is to be noted that the degree of Cultural assimilation within various ethnic groups outside the recognized minorities is high, with the following generations adding to the melting pot of the Turkish main body. Within that main body, certain distinctions based on diverse Turkic peoples origins could be made as well. Reliable data on the exact ethnic repartition of the population is not available, as the Turkish census figures do not include ethnic or racial figures.

Due to a demand for an increased labor force in post-World War II Europe, many Turkish citizens emigrated to Western Europe (particularly West Germany), contributing to the creation of a Turkish diaspora. Recently, Turkey has also become a destination for numerous immigrants, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent increase of freedom of movement in the region. These immigrants generally migrate from the former Soviet Bloc countries, as well as neighboring Muslim states, either to settle and work in Turkey or to continue their journey towards the European Union.Turkish language is the sole official language throughout Turkey. Reliable figures for the linguistic repartition of the populace are not available for reasons similar to those cited above. The public broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation broadcasts programs in local languages and dialects of Arabic language, Bosnian language, Circassian language and Kurdish language a few hours a week.

Nominally, 94.0% of the Turkish population is Islam, of whom over 75% belong to the Sunni Islam branch of Islam. A sizeable minority, about 20% of the Muslim population, is affiliated with the Shi'a Alevi sect. The mainstream Hanafite school of Sunni Islam is largely organized by the state, through the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Religious Affairs Directorate), which controls all mosques and Muslim clerics. The remainder of the population belongs to other faiths, particularly Christianity denominations (Eastern Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church), Judaism, Yezidism and Atheism.

There is a strong tradition of secularism in Turkey. Even though the state has no official religion nor promotes any, it actively mo {{Infobox Country or territory|native_name = Türkiye Cumhuriyeti|conventional_long_name = Republic of Turkey|common_name = Turkey|national_motto = Yurtta Sulh, Cihanda Sulh
Peace at Home, Peace in the World|national_anthem = İstiklâl MarşıThe Anthem of Independence]|latd=39 |latm=55'48.00 |latNS=N |longd=32 |longm=50 |longEW=E|largest_city = Istanbul|area_rank = 37th|area_magnitude = 1 E11|percent_water = 1.3|population_estimate = 71,158,647 |population_estimate_year = 2007|population_estimate_rank = 17th³|population_census = 67,803,927 |population_census_year = 2000|population_density_km2 = 93 |population_density_sq_mi = 240 ] Hürriyet: 2007 yılına hızlı girdik, seçime rağmen 410 milyar dolarlık olduk|GDP_nominal_rank =17th|GDP_nominal_year = 2007 Q1 (January-March)|GDP_nominal_per_capita = $5,561|GDP_nominal_per_capita_rank = 69th|HDI_year = 2006|HDI = 0.7574|HDI_rank = 92nd4|HDI_category = medium|Gini = 38|Gini_year = 2005|Gini_category = medium|currency = Turkish new lira5|currency_code = TRY|time_zone = EET|utc_offset = +2|time_zone_DST = EEST|utc_offset_DST = +3|cctld = .tr (1923).|footnote3 = Population and population density rankings based on 2005 figures.|footnote4 = UN Nations HDI Report, page 284|footnote5 = The [Turkish new lira (Yeni Türk Lirası, YTL) replaced the Turkish lira on 1 January 2005.-->Turkey (), known officially as the Republic of Turkey (), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and the Balkans region of southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest, Greece to the west, Georgia (country) to the northeast, Armenia, Azerbaijan (the Nakhichevan exclave), and Iran to the east, Iraq and Syria to the southeast. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the Black Sea to the north. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara, which is used by geographers to mark the border between Europe and Asia, thus making Turkey transcontinental country.

Because of its strategic location astride two continents, Culture of Turkey has a unique blend of Eastern world and Western culture tradition. A powerful regional presence in the Eurasian landmass with strong cultural and economic influence in the area between the European Union in the west and Central Asia in the east, Russia in the north and the Middle East in the south, Turkey has come to acquire increasing strategic significance.

Turkey, a Developed country#CIA developed country list, is a democracy, secular state, unitary, constitutional republic whose Politics of Turkey was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West while continuing to foster relations with the Eastern world.

Etymology The name for Turkey in the Turkish language, Türkiye, can be divided into two words: Türk, which means "strong" in Old Turkic language and usually signifying the inhabitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish people or Turkic peoples, a later form of "tu-kin", name given by the China to the people living south of the Altay Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BCE; and the Arabic grammar#Nisba -iye (derived from Arabic language), which means "owner" or "related to". The first recorded use of the term "Türk" or "Türük" as an exonym and endonym is contained in the Orkhon script of the Göktürks (Sky Turks) of Central Asia (c. 8th century CE). The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin "Turchia" (c. 1369).

History Pre-Turkic History of Anatolia , identified as the site of the Trojan War (ca. 1200 BCE)The Anatolian peninsula (also called Asia Minor), comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world due to its location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to Pottery Neolithic), Nevali Cori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacilar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered to be among the earliest human settlements in the world. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European languages, Semitic languages and South Caucasian languages languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite language and Luwian language languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated. in Ephesus, dating from 135 CEThe first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th centuries BCE. Subsequently, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria, Lycia and Urartu. 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 civilization periods.

The west coast of Anatolia was meanwhile settled by the Ionians, one of the Ancient Greece. The entire area was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries BCE and later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. Anatolia was subsequently divided among the Lysimachus, Antigonid dynasty and Seleucid Empire, and later among a number of small Hellenistic civilization (including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, Attalid dynasty, Pontus and Kingdom of Armenia), all of which had succumbed to Roman Empire by the mid-1st century BCE. In 286 CE, Diocletian made Nicomedia (present-day İzmit) the eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire with the Tetrarchy system, which remained in force until Licinius was defeated by Constantine the Great at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324 CE. Constantine mainly resided in Nicomedia as his interim capital city for the next six years, until in 330 CE he declared the nearby Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it as New Rome. After Constantine's death in 337 CE, Nova Roma was eventually renamed as Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). Following the permanent division of the Roman Empire between the two sons of Theodosius I in 395 CE, the city became the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Turks and the Ottoman Empire , built in 1575 in Edirne, is the masterpiece of the greatest Ottoman architect Sinan and one of the most beautiful examples of Turkish architecture.

Historically, Turkic people have lived and left their influence throughout many parts of Eurasia. They have consistently maintained a policy of assimilation, by absorbing the different cultures that they conquered into their own culture, and maintaining many of the useful ideas and influences of the conquered cultures. Turkish political history began with the creation of the powerful Huns, which was able to expand its borders from Eastern Turkestan and Central Asia to Central Europe and Western Europe under the command of Attila.

After the Huns, until 1040 a series of states founded by various Turkic tribes rose to prominence and consequently collapsed due to invasions from other Turkic tribes. One group in particular was the Seljuks, a branch of the Kınık Oghuz Turks who, in the 9th century, resided on the periphery of the Muslim history#Abbasids, north of the Caspian Sea and Aral Seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy. In the 10th century, the Seljuks migrated from their homelands in Central Asia into the eastern Anatolian regions.Following their victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks permanently settled in Anatolia, giving rise to the Sultanate of Rûm which developed as a separate branch of the larger Seljuk Empire. During the time of the Seljuk dominance, there were two other prominent Turkish states, the Kara-Khanid Khanate and Ghaznavids who became unified under Seljuk rule. In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongol Empire and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.

The Ottoman Empire interacted with both Eastern world and Western culture cultures throughout its 623-year history. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was among the world's most powerful political entities, often locking horns with the powers of eastern Europe in its steady advance through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following Decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, and was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious Allies of World War I sought the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire through the Treaty of Sèvres.

Republican era , founder and first President of the Republic of TurkeyThe occupation of Istanbul and Occupation of İzmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 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. By September 18 1922, the occupying armies were repelled and the country saw the birth of the new Turkish state. On November 1, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 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 Ankara.

Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first president and subsequently introduced Atatürk's Reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past. The Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (Father of the Turks) in 1934.

Turkey entered World War II on the side of the Allies of World War II on February 23, 1945 as a ceremonial gesture and became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945. Difficulties faced by Greece after the war in quelling a Greek Civil War, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the Turkey-United States relations 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 US military and economic support.

After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean Sea. Following a decade of Cypriot Civil War on the island of Cyprus and the subsequent Athens-inspired Turkish invasion of Cyprus#Greek military coup of July 1974, Turkey Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established, but was recognised only by Turkey.

Following the end of the Single-Party Period of Republic of Turkey in 1945, the Multi-Party Period of Republic of Turkey witnessed tensions over the following decades, and the period between the 1960s and the 1980s was particularly marked by Right-wing and left-wing armed conflicts (Republic of Turkey) that resulted in military coup d'états 1960 Turkish coup d'état and 1980 Turkish coup d'état, and coups by memorandum in 1971 Turkish coup d'état and 1997 Turkish coup d'état. The liberalization of the Turkish economy that began in the 1980s changed the landscape of the country, with successive periods of high growth and crises punctuating the following decades.

Government and politics Turkey is a parliamentary system representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secular state. Constitution of Turkey 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 List of Presidents of Turkey and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a seven-year term by the parliament but is not required to be one of its members. The last President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was elected on May 16 2000, after having served as the President of the Constitutional Court of Turkey. He was succeeded on August 28 2007 by Abdullah Gül. Executive (government) is exercised by the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey and the Council of Ministers of Turkey which make up the government, while the legislature 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 Legal System in the Republic of Turkey with the constitution. The Turkish Council of State is the tribunal of last resort for administrative cases, and the High Court of Appeals of Turkey for all others. in AnkaraThe Prime Minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government and is most often the head of the List of political parties in Turkey that has the most seats in parliament. The current Prime Minister is the former mayor of İstanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose conservative Justice and Development Party (Turkey) won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the Turkish general election, 2002, organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001, with 34% of the suffrage. In the Turkish general election, 2007, AKP received 46.6% of the votes and could defend its majority in parliament. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Ministers have to be members of the parliament, but in most cases they are (one notable exception was Kemal Derviş, the Minister of State in Charge of Economy following the financial crisis of 2001; he is currently the president of the United Nations Development Programme).

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 List of political parties in Turkey, whose ideologies range from the far left to the far right. The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatism, or ban their existence altogether.

There are 550 members of parliament who are elected for a five-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 that win at least election threshold cast in a national parliamentary election gain the right to representation in the parliament. As a result of this threshold, only two parties were able to obtain that right during the elections of 2002. Independent candidates may run; however, they must also win at least 10% of the vote in their circonscription to be elected.

Foreign relations , İsmet İnönü and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference in December 1943Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations (1945), the OECD (1961), the OSCE (1973) and the G20 industrial nations (1999).

In line with its traditional Western orientation, relations with Europe have always been a central part of Turkish foreign policy. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the European Economic Community (predecessor of the EU) 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 European Union-Turkey Customs Union with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun Accession of Turkey to the European Union with the EU on October 3 2005. It is believed that the accession process will take at least 15 years due to Turkey's size and the depth of disagreements over certain issues.These include disputes with EU members Greece and the Republic of Cyprus over Turkey's 1974 military intervention to prevent the islands annexation to Greece. Since then, Turkey does not recognize the essentially Greek Cypriot Republic of Cyprus as the sole authority on the island, but instead supports the Turkish Cypriot community in the form of the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

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 volatile Middle East. As well as hosting an important American base near the Syrian/Iraq border for US operations in the region, Turkey's status as a secular democracy and its positive relations with Israel made Ankara a crucial ally for Washington. In return, Turkey has benefitted from the United States political, economic and diplomatic support, becoming a strong proponent of its membership of the European Union. However, in recent years relations have been strained by the ongoing Iraq War. Facing strong domestic opposition in Turkey, a government motion to allow U.S. troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's border failed to reach the necessary majority. A primary concern for Turkey was an independent Iraqi Kurdistan arising from a destabilised Iraq; it has previously fought an insurgent war on its own soil, in which an estimated 37,000 people lost their lives, against the Kurdistan Workers Party (listed as a terrorism organization by Kurdistan Workers Party/States Listed as Terrorist, including the U.S. and the EU). The United States reluctance to threaten the relative stability of northern Iraq by launching operations agains the PKK led the Turkish parliament to authorise a cross border military operation in 2007. BBC: Turkish MPs back attacks in Iraq

The post cold war environment also provided Turkey with opportunities to establish new relations. The indepedence of the Turkic states of the Soviet Union, with whom Turkey shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage, allowed Turkey to extend its economic and political relations deep into Central Asia. . The most salient of these relations saw the completion of a multi billion dollar oil and 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, relations with other former communist states have been tense. The border with Armenia remains closed following its occupation of Azeri territority during the Nagorno-Karabakh War U.S. Department of State: Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Armenia: Respect for Human Rights. Section 1, a.. Relations with Armenian have been further strained by the controversy surrounding the forced deportations and related deaths of hundrends of thousands of Armenians in the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Armenia and its diaspora, backed by a number of historians, claim the events constitued a genocide. The Turkish government rejects the genocide label, instead stating the deaths were a result of disease, famine and inter-ethnic strife

Military of the Turkish Air Force refueling Turkish Aerospace Industries-built F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jetsThe Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Turkish Army, the Turkish Navy and the Turkish Air Force. The Turkish Gendarmerie and the Turkish 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.

The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing armed forces in NATO, after the Military of the United States, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel serving in its five branches.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.23 (2005) Every fit heterosexual male Turkish citizen is required to serve in the military for time periods ranging from three weeks to fifteen months, depending on his education and job location (Sexual orientation and military service have the right to be exempt, upon their own personal request).

In 1998, Turkey announced a program of modernization worth some United States dollar31 billion over a ten year period in various projects including tanks, fighter jets, helicopters, submarines, warships and assault rifles.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.22 (2005) Turkey is also a Level 3 contributor to the F-35 Lightning II (JSF) program, gaining an opportunity to develop and influence the creation of the next generation fighter spearheaded by the United States. is a Salih Reis (MEKO) class frigate of the Turkish NavyTurkey 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 War in Afghanistan (2001–present) and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) since 2001.Economist Intelligence Unit:Turkey, p.23 (2005) 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 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

The Turkish military has traditionally held a powerful position in Turkish politics, considering itself the guardian of Turkey's secular democracy. It has several times within the last decades forcibly removed elected governments believed to be straying from the principles of the state as established by Atatürk and enshrined in the constitution. Turkey's army defends secularism ahead of elections- Yahoo! News, Monday 27 August 2007

The Chief of the Turkish 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. The actual Commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt, who succeeded General Hilmi Özkök on August 26 2006.

Regions, provinces, and districts The capital city of Turkey is Ankara. The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. The provinces are organized into 7 Regions of Turkey for Census#Turkey purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.

Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this are the provinces of Hatay Province (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli Province (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya Province (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are İstanbul (+10 million), Ankara Province (+4 million), İzmir Province (+3.4 million), Konya Province (+2.2 million), Bursa Province (+2.1 million) and Adana Province (+1.85 million).

The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Turkey, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, İzmit, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 67% of Turkey's population live in urban centers. In all, 12 cities have populations that exceed 500,000, and 48 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Major cities:

• İstanbul - 9,085,599
• Ankara - 3,540,522
• İzmir - 2,732,669
• Bursa - 1,630,940
• Adana - 1,397,853
• Konya - 1,294,817
• Gaziantep - 1,009,126
• Antalya - 936,330

(Population figures are given according to the 2000 census)

Geography and climate near Fethiye in the Turkish RivieraThe territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mile) long and 800 km (500 mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 783,562 UN Demographic Yearbook, accessed April 16, 2007 square kilometres (300,948 square mile), of which 755,688 square kilometres (291,773 sq mi) are in Southwest Asia and 23,764 square kilometres (9,174 sq mi) in Europe, thus making Turkey a transcontinental country. Turkey's area makes it the world's List of countries and outlying territories by total area country, and is about the size of Metropolitan France and the United Kingdom combined. Turkey is encircled by seas on three sides: the Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest.

The European section of Turkey, in the northwest, is Eastern Thrace, and forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country, Anatolia (also called Asia Minor), consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, between the Köroğlu and East-Black Sea mountain range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey has a more mountainous landscape, and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras River, and contains Lake Van and Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at 5,165 metres (16,94 foot (unit of length)).

Turkey is geographically divided into seven regions: Marmara Region, Turkey, Aegean Region, Turkey, Black Sea Region, Turkey, Central Anatolia Region, Turkey, East Anatolia Region, Turkey, South Eastern Anatolia Region, Turkey and the Mediterranean Sea Region, Turkey. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately one-sixth of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward. is the highest peak in Turkey at 5,165 m (16,946 ft)Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcano eruptions. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the geologic fault running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. There is an earthquake fault line across the north of the country from west to east, which caused 1999 İzmit earthquake in 1999.

Turkey has a Mediterranean temperate climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet and cold winters, though conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the interior of Turkey a continental climate with distinct seasons. The central Anatolian Plateau is much more subject to extremes than coastal areas. Winters on the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of −30 Celsius to −40 °C (−22 °Fahrenheit to -40 °F) can occur in the mountainous areas in the east, and snow may lie on the ground 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures generally above 30 °C (86 °F) in the day. Annual precipitation (meteorology) averages about 400 millimetres (15 inch), with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall frequently is less than 300 millimetres (12 in). May is generally the wettest month, whereas July and August are the most dry.

Economy financial district in IstanbulThe CIA classifies Turkey as a Developed country#CIA developed country list. CIA World Factbook Turkey is a founding member of the OECD since 1961 and is also a member of the G20 industrial nations which brings together the 20 largest economies of the world.

For most of its republican history, Turkey has adhered to a quasi-statism approach, with strict government controls over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. However, during the 1980s, Turkey began a series of reforms, initiated by Prime Minister Turgut Özal and designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market economy-based model. The reforms spurred rapid growth, but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year), and 2001, resulting in an average of 4% gross domestic product growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. Lack of additional reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread political corruption, resulted in high inflation, a weak List of banks in Turkey sector and increased macroeconomics volatility.

Since the economic crisis of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Derviş, inflation has fallen to single-digit numbers, investor confidence and foreign investment have soared, and unemployment has fallen. Turkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatization of publicly-owned industries, and the liberalisation of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate. in AnkaraThe GDP growth rate for 2005 was 7.4%, thus making Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. The agricultural sector accounts for 11.9% of GDP, whereas industrial and service sectors make up 23.7% and 64.5%, respectively. The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2005, there were 24,124,501 Tourism in Turkey to the country, who contributed 18.2 billion USD to Turkey's revenues. Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are construction, automotive industry, electronics and textiles.

In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency to cement the acquisition of the economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1 2005, the Turkish lira was replaced by the Turkish new lira by dropping off six zeroes (1 YTL= 1,000,000 TL). As a result of continuing economic reforms, inflation has dropped to 8.2% in 2005, and the unemployment rate to 10.3%. With a per capita GDP (Nominal GDP) of 5,062 USD, Turkey List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita in the world in 2005. In 2004, it was estimated that 46.2% of total disposable income was received by the top 20% income earners, while the lowest 20% received 6%.Turkey's main trading partners are the European Union (59% of exports and 52% of imports as of 2005), the United States, Russia and Japan. Turkey has taken advantage of a European Union-Turkey Customs Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In 2005, exports amounted to 73.5 billion USD while the imports stood at 116.8 billion USD, with increases of 16.3% and 19.7% compared to 2004, respectively. For 2006, the exports amounted to 85.8 billion USD, representing an increase of 16,8% over 2005. The most recent figure for exports is 100.1 billion USD as of September 2007.

After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), Turkey succeeded in attracting 8.5 billion USD in FDI in 2005 and is expected to attract a higher figure in 2006. A series of large privatizations, the stability fostered by the start of Accession of Turkey to the European Union, strong and stable growth, and structural changes in the banking, retail, and telecommunications sectors have all contributed to a rise in foreign investment.

Demographics in Istanbul's cosmopolitan Beyoğlu districtAs of 2005, the population of Turkey stood at 72.6 million with a growth rate of 1.5% per annum. The Turkish population is relatively young, with 25.5% falling within the 0–15 age bracket. According to statistics released by the government in 2005, life expectancy stands at 68.9 years for men and 73.8 years for women, with an overall average of 71.3 years for the populace as a whole.

Education in Turkey is compulsory and free from ages 6 to 15. The literacy rate is 95.3% for men and 79.6% for women, with an overall average of 87.4%. This low figure is mainly due to prevailing feudal attitudes against women in the Arab- and Kurdish-inhabited southeastern provinces of the country.

Article 66 of the Constitution of Turkey defines a "Turk" as anyone who is "bound to the Turkish state through the bond of Turkish nationality law"; therefore, the legal use of the term "Turkish" as a citizen of Turkey is different from the ethnic definition. The majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish people. Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds in Turkey, Circassians, Roma people, Arabs in Turkey and the three officially-recognized minorities (per the treaty of Lausanne) of Greeks in Turkey, Armenians in Turkey and Jews in Turkey. There are also small populations of Levantines#Etymology, mostly of Italian and French descent, in Istanbul and Izmir. The largest non-Turkic ethnicity is the Kurds, a distinct ethnic group traditionally concentrated in the southeast of the country. Minorities other than the three official ones do not have any special group privileges, and while the term "minority group" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, it is to be noted that the degree of Cultural assimilation within various ethnic groups outside the recognized minorities is high, with the following generations adding to the melting pot of the Turkish main body. Within that main body, certain distinctions based on diverse Turkic peoples origins could be made as well. Reliable data on the exact ethnic repartition of the population is not available, as the Turkish census figures do not include ethnic or racial figures.

Due to a demand for an increased labor force in post-World War II Europe, many Turkish citizens emigrated to Western Europe (particularly West Germany), contributing to the creation of a Turkish diaspora. Recently, Turkey has also become a destination for numerous immigrants, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the consequent increase of freedom of movement in the region. These immigrants generally migrate from the former Soviet Bloc countries, as well as neighboring Muslim states, either to settle and work in Turkey or to continue their journey towards the European Union.Turkish language is the sole official language throughout Turkey. Reliable figures for the linguistic repartition of the populace are not available for reasons similar to those cited above. The public broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Corporation broadcasts programs in local languages and dialects of Arabic language, Bosnian language, Circassian language and Kurdish language a few hours a week.

Nominally, 94.0% of the Turkish population is Islam, of whom over 75% belong to the Sunni Islam branch of Islam. A sizeable minority, about 20% of the Muslim population, is affiliated with the Shi'a Alevi sect. The mainstream Hanafite school of Sunni Islam is largely organized by the state, through the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı (Religious Affairs Directorate), which controls all mosques and Muslim clerics. The remainder of the population belongs to other faiths, particularly Christianity denominations (Eastern Orthodox Church, Armenian Apostolic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church), Judaism, Yezidism and Atheism.

There is a strong tradition of secularism in Turkey. Even though the state has no official religion nor promotes any, it actively mo

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