67 Facts About Turkey

One of the world's earliest permanently settled regions, present-day Turkey was home to important Neolithic sites like Gobekli Tepe, and was inhabited by ancient civilisations including the Hattians, Hittites, Anatolian peoples, Mycenaean Greeks, Persians and others.

Turkey played a prominent role in the Korean War and joined NATO in 1952.

Turkey is a regional power and a newly industrialized country, with a geopolitically strategic location.

Turkey has a rich cultural legacy shaped by centuries of history and the influence of the various peoples that have inhabited its territory over several millennia; it is home to 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is among the most visited countries in the world.

Name of Turkey appeared in the Western sources after the crusades.

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Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world.

The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, and is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC.

All of modern-day Turkey was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC.

Territory of Turkey later fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC, which led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization in the area.

Turkey is claimed to have performed numerous miracles, healing people and casting out demons, and he apparently organized missionary activity in other regions.

Several ecumenical councils of the early Church were held in cities located in present-day Turkey, including the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the First Council of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 381, the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the Council of Chalcedon (Kadikoy) in 451.

Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the closing stages of the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945.

Turkey subsequently became a founding member of the OECD in 1961, and an associate member of the EEC in 1963.

Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005.

Turkey has a unitary structure in terms of administration and this aspect is one of the most important factors shaping the Turkish public administration.

Turkey is subdivided into 7 regions and 21 subregions for geographic, demographic and economic purposes; this does not refer to an administrative division.

Turkey has adopted the principle of the separation of powers.

In line with the aforementioned article of the Turkish Constitution and related laws, the court system in Turkey can be classified under three main categories; which are the Judicial Courts, Administrative Courts, and Military Courts.

Law enforcement in Turkey is carried out by several agencies under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Turkey is a founding member of the United Nations, the OECD (1961), the OIC (1969), the OSCE (1973), the ECO (1985), the BSEC (1992), the D-8 (1997) and the G20 (1999).

In 2012 Turkey became a dialogue partner of the SCO, and in 2013 became a member of the ACD.

Turkey became one of the early members of the Council of Europe in 1950, applied for associate membership of the EEC in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963.

Subsequently, Turkey benefited from the United States' political, economic and diplomatic support, including in key issues such as the country's bid to join the European Union.

However, in 1993, Turkey sealed its land border with Armenia in a gesture of support to Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and it remains closed.

Armenia and Turkey started diplomatic talks in order to normalise the relationship between the two countries.

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Under the AKP government, Turkey's influence has grown in the formerly Ottoman territories of the Middle East and the Balkans, based on the "strategic depth" doctrine, called Neo-Ottomanism.

However, following the rapprochement with Russia in 2016, Turkey revised its stance regarding the solution of the conflict in Syria.

Turkey has the second-largest standing military force in NATO, after the United States, with an estimated strength of 890, 700 military as of February 2022.

Turkey is one of five NATO member states which are part of the nuclear sharing policy of the alliance, together with Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

Turkey has participated in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since the Korean War, including peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Yugoslavia and the Horn of Africa.

In recent years, Turkey has assisted Peshmerga forces in northern Iraq and the Somali Armed Forces with security and training.

Human rights record of Turkey has been the subject of much controversy and international condemnation.

Turkey is a transcontinental country bridging Southeastern Europe and Western Asia.

Turkey covers an area of 783, 562 square kilometres, of which 755, 688 square kilometres (291, 773 square miles) is in Asia and 23, 764 square kilometres (9, 175 square miles) is in Europe.

Turkey is divided into seven geographical regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and the Mediterranean.

Eastern Turkey has a mountainous landscape and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras.

Coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters.

The Turkish Black Sea coast receives the most precipitation and is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year.

Turkey has seen a growth in video gaming industry during the recent years.

Tourism in Turkey has increased almost every year in the 21st century, and is an important part of the economy.

Turkey is one of the world's top ten destination countries, with the highest percentage of foreign visitors arriving from Europe; specially Germany and Russia in recent years.

In 2019, Turkey ranked sixth in the world in terms of the number of international tourist arrivals behind Italy, with 51.

Turkey has 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and 84 World Heritage Sites in tentative list.

Turkey is home to 519 Blue Flag beaches, which makes it in the third place in the world.

Renewable energy in Turkey is being increased and Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant is being built on the Mediterranean coast: but despite national electricity generation overcapacity fossil fuels are still subsidized.

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Turkey has the fifth-highest direct utilisation and capacity of geothermal power in the world.

Turkey is a global leader in unmanned aerial vehicles; the Bayraktar TB2, manufactured by private defence company Baykar, has been exported to over a dozen countries and played a decisive role in several conflicts, including the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Turkey has made significant inroads in aerospace technology into the 21st century.

Turkey is among the top fifty most innovative countries in the world, ranking 41st in the Global Innovation Index in 2021; this represents a considerable increase since 2011, where it was ranked 65th.

Turkey has an average population density of 97 people per km².

Immigration to Turkey is the process by which people migrate to Turkey to reside in the country.

Endangered languages in Turkey include Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Cappadocian Greek, Gagauz, Hertevin, Homshetsma, Kabard-Cherkes, Ladino, Laz, Mlahso, Pontic Greek, Romani, Suret, Turoyo, Ubykh, and Western Armenian.

Turkey is a founding member of the International Organization of Turkic Culture, comprising other independent Turkic states, such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

Turkey is a secular state with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience.

Christianity has a long history in present-day Turkey, which is the birthplace of numerous Christian apostles and saints.

Turkey has the biggest Jewish community among the Muslim-majority countries.

Basic education in Turkey is said to lag behind other OECD countries, with significant differences between high and low performers.

Turkey is a member of Socrates programme, Erasmus Programme and Erasmus+ Programmes.

Turkey has become a hub for foreign students in recent years.

Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Turkic, Anatolian, Byzantine, Ottoman and Western culture and traditions, which started with the Westernisation of the Ottoman Empire and still continues today.

The mix of cultural influences in Turkey is dramatised, for example, in the form of the "new symbols of the clash and interlacing of cultures" enacted in the novels of Orhan Pamuk, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Music of Turkey includes mainly Turkic elements as well as partial influences ranging from Central Asian folk music, Arabic music, Greek music, Ottoman music, Persian music and Balkan music, as well as references to more modern European and American popular music.

Turkey has seen documented folk music and recorded popular music produced in the ethnic styles of Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Polish and Jewish communities, among others.

Turkey was the chief architect of at least 374 buildings that were constructed in various provinces of the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.

Some of the notable contemporary architects of Turkey are Behruz Cinici, Emre Arolat, Murat Tabanlioglu, Melkan Tabanlioglu, Melike Altinisik and Mehmet Kutukcuoglu.

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The men's national basketball team won the silver medal at the 2010 FIBA World Championship and at EuroBasket 2001, which were both hosted by Turkey; and is one of the most successful at the Mediterranean Games.

Turkey is today the world's second largest exporter of television series.