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Turkey

Land Area 769,632km²
Land Area + Seaarea
Population 79,814,871
Population density 103.7 / km²

Informations

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye [ˈtyɾcije]), officially the Republic of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti [ˈtyɾcije dʒumˈhuːɾijeti] (listen)), is a transcontinental country located mostly on the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia, with a smaller percentage on the Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe. East Thrace, the part of Turkey in Europe, is separated from Anatolia from the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (collectively called the Turkish Straits). Istanbul, which straddles Europe and Asia, is the largest city in the country, while Ankara is the capital. Turkey is bordered on its shore by Greece and Bulgaria; north from the Black Sea; northeast by Georgia; east by Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran; southeast by Iraq; south from Syria and the Mediterranean Sea; and west by the Aegean Sea. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the nation's citizens identify as Turkish, while Kurds are the largest minority, at between 15 to 20 percent of the population.At various points in its history, the area has been inhabited by diverse civilisations such as the ancient Hattians and Hurrians, the Anatolian peoples such as the Hittites and Luwians, as well as the Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians, Galatians, and Armenians. Hellenization started during the era of Alexander the Great and continued into the Byzantine era. The Seljuk Turks began migrating to the region in the 11th century, and their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolises the base of Turkey for many Turkish nationalists. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia before the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into little Turkish principalities called beyliks. Starting in the late 13th century, the Ottomans started uniting the beyliks and beating the Balkans. The Turkification of Anatolia increased during the Ottoman period. After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power dropped with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In a bid to consolidate the weakening political and social foundations of the empire, Mahmud II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in every area of the state including the military and bureaucracy, as well as the emancipation of all citizens.The 1913 coup d'état efficiently place the country under the control of the Three Pashas, who had been mostly responsible for the Empire's entry into World War I in 1914. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian and Pontic Greek themes. After the Ottomans and the other Central Powers lost the war, the conglomeration of lands and peoples that had composed the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. The Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his comrades from the occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of the sultanate on 1 November 1922, the replacement of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923, with Atatürk as its first president. Atatürk enacted a lot of reforms, many of which included various aspects of Western thought, doctrine and customs to the new form of Turkish government.Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank, and also a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC, and G20. After getting one of the early members of the Council of Europe in 1950, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995, and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. In a non-binding vote on 13 March 2019, the European Parliament called on the EU governments to suspend Turkey's accession talks; which, despite being stalled since 2018, remain active as of 2020. Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power and a newly industrialized state by several analysts, while its location has given it strategic and geopolitical importance throughout history. Turkey is a secular, unitary, formerly parliamentary republic that adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017; the new system came into effect with the presidential election in 2018. Turkey's current government, headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP, has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam and undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the media.

Source: Wikipedia