TURKEY
Capital: Ankara
Largest City: Istanbul
Official Language: Turkish
Government: Parliamentary Republic
Founder: Mustafa Kemal ATATURK
Population: 71,517,100
Internet TLD: .tr
Calling Code: 90
A BRIEF HISTORY
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 settlement of
Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken
Indo-European,
Semitic and
Kartvelian 
languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation.The first major empire in the area was that of the
Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BCE. Starting around 1200 BC, the west coast of Anatolia was settled by
Aeolian and
Ionian Greeks. the entire area was conquered by the Persian
Achaemenid Empire during the 6th and 5th centuries and later fell to
Alexander the Great in 334 BCE.
[15] Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of all
Hellenistic kingdoms (including
Bithynia,
Cappadocia,
Pergamum, and
Pontus), all of which had succumbed to
Rome by the mid-1st century BCE. In 324 CE, the Roman emperor
Constantine I chose
Byzantium to be the new capital of the Roman Empire, renaming it
New Rome (later
Constantinople and
Istanbul). After the fall of the
Western Roman Empire, it became the capital of the
Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire).
In the 10th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homelands towards the eastern regions of Anatolia, which eventually became the new homeland of Oğuz Turkic tribes following the
Battle of Manzikert (
Malazgirt) in 1071. The victory of the Seljuks gave rise to the
Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate; which developed as a separate branch of the larger
Seljuk Empire that covered parts of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia and
Southwest Asia.
In 1243, the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantines.
The Ottoman Empire interacted with both
Eastern and
Western cultures throughout its 623-year history. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was among the world's most powerful political entities
the Ottoman Empire entered
World War I through the
Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914, and was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious
Allied Powers sought the
dismemberment of the Ottoman state through the
Treaty of Sèvres.The
occupation of İstanbul and
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 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
newly founded parliament formally abolished the
Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The
Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the
successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in the new capital of
Ankara.Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first
president and subsequently introduced
many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past.According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (
Father of the Turks) in 1934.
Turkey is a founding member of the
United Nations (1945), the
OECD (1961), the
OIC (1969), the
OSCE (1973), the
ECO (1985), the
BSEC (1992) and the
G-20 major economies (1999). On October 17, 2008, Turkey received the votes of 151 countries and was
elected as a non-permanent member of the
United Nations Security Council, on behalf of the
Western European and Others Group, together with
Austria which received 132 votes. Turkey's membership of the council effectively began on January 1, 2009. Turkey had previously been a member of the U.N. Security Council in 1951-1952, 1954-1955 and 1961.
The
Turkish Armed Forces consists of the
Army, the
Navy and the
Air Force. The
Gendarmerie and the
Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime, although they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions.The Turkish Armed Forces is the second largest standing
armed force in
NATO, after the
U.S. Armed Forces, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel serving in its five branches.
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 for
census purposes; however, they do not represent an administrative structure. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.The biggest city and the pre-Republican capital
İstanbul is the financial, economic and cultural heart of the country.
[55] Other important cities include
İzmir,
Bursa,
Adana,
Trabzon,
Malatya,
Gaziantep,
Erzurum,
Kayseri,
Kocaeli,
Konya,
Mersin,
Eskişehir,
Diyarbakır,
Antalya and
Samsun. An estimated 70.5% of Turkey's population live in urban centersIn all, 18 provinces have populations that exceed 1 million inhabitants, and 21 provinces have populations between 1 million and 500,000 inhabitants. Only two provinces have populations less than 100,000.
Turkey is a transcontinental[57] Eurasian country. Asian Turkey (made up largely of Anatolia), which includes 97% of the country, is separated from European Turkey by the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles (which together form a water link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). European Turkey (eastern Thrace or Rumelia in the Balkan peninsula) includes 3% of the country.[58]
The territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) long and 800 km (500 mi) wide, with a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's highest point at 5,165
metres (16,946 ft).
Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic, Anatolian, Ottoman (which was itself a continuation of both Greco-Roman and Islamic cultures) and Western culture and traditions, which started with the Westernization of the Ottoman Empire and still continues today. This mix originally began as a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West. As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, an increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into fine arts; such as museums, theatres, opera houses and architecture. Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining the modern Turkish identity, Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.[109]
Turkish music and literature form great examples of such a mix
of cultural influences, which were a result of the interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe, thus contributing to a blend of Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music and literary arts (In picture Eurovision Music Contest Winner-Sertap ERENER, 2003)
Architectural elements found in Turkey are also testaments to the unique mix of traditions that have influenced the region over the centuries. In addition to the traditional
Byzantine elements present in numerous parts of Turkey, many artifacts of the later
Ottoman architecture, with its exquisite blend of local and Islamic traditions, are to be found throughout the country, as well as in many former territories of the Ottoman Empire.
Sinan is widely regarded as the greatest architect of the classical period in Ottoman architecture. Since the 18th century, Turkish architecture has been increasingly influenced by Western styles, and this can be particularly seen in Istanbul where buildings like the
Blue Mosque and the
Dolmabahçe Palace are juxtaposed next to numerous modern skyscrapers, all of them representing different traditions
.
The most popular sport in Turkey is
football.
[114] Turkey's top teams include
Galatasaray,
Fenerbahçe and
Beşiktaş. In 2000, Galatasaray cemented its role as a major European club by winning the
UEFA Cup and
UEFA Super Cup. Two years later the Turkish national team finished third in the
2002 World Cup Finals in Japan and South Korea, while in 2008 the national team reached the semi-finals of the
UEFA Euro 2008 competition. The
Atatürk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul hosted the
2005 UEFA Champions League Final, while the
Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium in Istanbul will host the
2009 UEFA Cup Final.
Łódź is an exceptional city with history that is unique among other cities In Poland – the second largest town in Poland- is generally associated with the textile industry.
No others European city had experienced such dynamic development. 
