Turkey , officially the Republic of Turkey, is a Eurasian country located mainly in the Anatolian peninsula in Southwestern Asia, with a small portion of its territory located in the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe.
Turkey borders seven countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia, Armenia to the northeast; Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. In addition, it borders the Black Sea to the north; Aegean Sea and Marmara Sea to the west and Mediterranean Sea to the south.
The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular constitutional republic, whose political system was established in 1923. Turkey is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, OSCE, OECD and the Council of Europe. In October 2005, the European Union opened accession negotiations with Ankara and thus Turkey is a Candidate Country to the European Union.
Due to its strategic location straddling Europe and Asia and between three seas, Turkey has been a historical crossroads and economic centre, the homeland of and battleground between several great civilizations.

History

Because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe, Anatolia has been a cradle for several civilizations since prehistoric ages, with Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevali Cori, Hacilar, Göbekli Tepe and Mersin. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues forward into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken both Indo-European and Semitic 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. Other authors have proposed an Anatolian origin for the Etruscans of ancient Italy.
Iron Age and peoples that have settled in or conquered Anatolia include the Phrygians, Hittites, Lydians, Lycians, Cimmerians,  Persians, Greeks. The conquest of Anatolia by Turkic peoples, under the Seljuks with the Battle of Manzikert and the rise of the Seljuk Empire in the 11th century was finalized by the rise of the Ottoman Empire. In the 16th century, at the height of its power, the Ottoman Empire grew to cover Anatolia, North Africa, the Middle East, Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
Following years of decline, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in an alliance with Germany in 1914 where it was ulitmately defeated and occupied. Western powers sought to partition the empire through the Treaty of Sevres . On 19 May 1919 this prompted the beginning of a nationalist movement under the command of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself in the Battle of Gallipoli. Kemal Pasha sought to revoke the terms of treaty signed by the Sultan in Istanbul, this involved mobilizing every available part of Turkish society in what would become the Turkish War of Independence
By 18 September 1922 the occupying armies were repelled and the country was liberated. On 1 November 1922 the Turkish Grand National Assembly formally abolished the office of the Sultan, thus ending 631 years of Ottoman rule. In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne recognized the sovereignty of a new Turkish Republic, Kemal was granted the name Atatürk (meaning father of Turks) by the National Assembly and would become the Republic's first President. Atatürk instituted a wide-range of far reaching reforms with the aim of modernizing the new Republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past.

After World War II the Truman Doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece and resulted in large scale U.S. military and economic support. After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean conflict, Turkey in 1952 joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Turkey is currently in accession talks with the European Union.

Politics

Turkey's political system is based on a separation of powers. Its constitution is called Anayasa or Main Law.
Head of State - The function of Head of State is performed by the President. A president is elected every seven years by the Grand National Assembly. The President does not have to be a member of parliament.
Executive power - Executive power rests in the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers. The Ministers have to be members of Parliament; however, the Prime Minister is no longer required to be an MP. The Prime Minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government.
Parliament - Legislative power resides with the 550-seat Grand National Assembly, representing 81 provinces. The Grand National Assembly is elected every five years. To be represented in Parliament, a party must win at least 10% of the national vote in a national parliamentary election. Candidates may also run as independents. To be elected, they must win at least 10% of the vote in the province from which they are running.

Geography

The territory of Turkey extends from 36° to 42° N and from 26° to 45° E in Eurasia. It is roughly rectangular in shape and is 1,660 kilometers wide. Turkey's area inclusive of lakes is 814,578 square kilometres of which 790,200 square kilometres occupies the Anatolian peninsula (also called Asia Minor) in Asia, and 3% or 24,378 square kilometres  are located in Europe. Many geographers consider Turkey politically in Europe, although it is rather a transcontinental country between Asia and Europe. The land borders of Turkey total 2,573 kilometres and the coastlines (including islands) total another 8,333 kilometres .
Turkey is generally divided into seven regions: the Marmara, the Aegean, the Mediterranean, Central Anatolia, East Anatolia, Southeast Anatolia and the Black Sea region. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately 1/6 of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward.

Turkey forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, with the division between the two running from the Black Sea to the north down along the Bosporus strait through the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles strait to the Aegean Sea and the larger Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Anatolian peninsula or Anatolia consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, in between the Köroðlu and East-Black Sea mountain range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. To the east is found a more mountainous landscape, home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates ,Tigris and the Araks ,as well as Lake Van and Mount Ararat , Turkey's highest point at 5,137 metres.
The climate is 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.

Economy

Turkey's economy is a complex mix of modern industry and commerce along with a traditional agriculture sector that in 2005 still accounted for 30% of employment. Turkey has a strong and rapidly growing private sector, yet the state still plays a major role in basic industry, banking, transport, and communications.
Turkey began a series of reforms in the 1980s designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market-based model. The reforms spurred growth, but growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999, and 2001. Turkey's failure to pursue additional reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits, resulted in high inflation, increasing macroeconomic volatility, and a weak banking sector.
On January 1st 2005 the Turkish Lira was replaced by the New Turkish Lira, at an exchange rate of 1 new lira to 1,000,000 old. This was to demonstrate the stablisation achieved by the currency in recent years, and to help promote exchange, investment and trade.

Culture

Turkey has a very diverse culture derived from various elements of the Ottoman Empire, European, and the Islamic traditions. As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-driven former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, the increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into the fine arts, such as paintings, sculptures and architecture amongst other things. This was done as both a process of modernisation and of creating a cultural identity. Today the Turkish economy is diverse enough to subsidise individual artists with great freedom.
Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining a Turkish identity, the culture of Turkey is an interesting combination of clear efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.

Religion

Nominally, 99% of the population is Muslim. Most belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. About 15-20% of the population are Alevi Muslims.  The remaining 1% of the population are of other religions, mostly Christian (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic (Gregorian), Syriac Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Protestants), Jewish and Yezidis.
The Orthodox Patriarch (Patrik) governs the Greek-Orthodox Church in Turkey and acts as the spiritual leader of all Orthodox churches throughout the world, the Armenian Patrik the Armenian Church, while the Jewish community is lead by the Hahambasi, Turkey's Chief Rabbi, all based in Istanbul. The Jewish population in Turkey is one of the largest and most prominent outside of Israel.

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