Portal:Turkey

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Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye [ˈtyɾcije]), officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located mainly on the peninsula of Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It shares borders with Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest; the Black Sea to the north; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq to the southeast; Syria and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; and the Aegean Sea to the west. Turks form the vast majority of the nation's population and Kurds are the largest minority. Turkey's capital is Ankara, while its largest city and financial centre is Istanbul (the imperial capital until 1923).

One of the world's earliest permanently settled regions, present-day Turkey was home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe, and was inhabited by ancient civilisations such as the Hattians, other Anatolian peoples and Mycenaean Greeks. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great which started the Hellenistic period, most of the ancient regions in modern Turkey were culturally Hellenised, which continued during the Byzantine era. The Seljuk Turks began migrating in the 11th century, and the Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottomans united the principalities and conquered the Balkans, and the Turkification of Anatolia increased during the Ottoman period. After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became a global power. From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power declined with a gradual loss of territories. Mahmud II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century. The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 restricted the authority of the Sultan and restored the Ottoman Parliament after a 30-year suspension, ushering the empire into a multi-party period. The 1913 coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas, who facilitated the Empire's entry into World War I as part of the Central Powers in 1914. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian and Pontic Greek subjects. After its defeat in the war, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned. The Turkish War of Independence against the occupying Allied Powers resulted in the abolition of the Sultanate on 1 November 1922, the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres) on 24 July 1923 and the proclamation of the Republic on 29 October 1923. With the reforms initiated by the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey became a secular, unitary and parliamentary republic. Turkey played a prominent role in the Korean War and joined NATO in 1952. The country endured several military coups in the latter half of the 20th century. The economy was liberalised in the 1980s, leading to stronger economic growth and political stability. The parliamentary republic was replaced with a presidential system by referendum in 2017. Since then, the new Turkish governmental system under president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his party, the AKP, has often been described as Islamist and authoritarian.

Turkey is a regional power and a newly industrialized country, with a geopolitically strategic location. Its economy, which is classified among the emerging and growth-leading economies, is the twentieth-largest in the world by nominal GDP, and the eleventh-largest by PPP. It is a charter member of the United Nations, an early member of NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank, and a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC, and G20. After becoming 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. (Full article...)

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Adana (Turkish pronunciation: [aˈda.na]; Armenian: Ադանա; Greek: Aδανα) is a major city in southern Turkey. The city is situated on the Seyhan River, 35 km (22 mi) inland from the north-eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative seat of the Adana Province home to 2,237,940 as of the last 31/12/2019 estimation. Its built-up (or metro) area was home to 1,768,860 inhabitants made of 4 urban districts (all but Karaisali not agglomerated yet).

Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, a distinct geo-cultural region, at a time, was one of the most important regions of the classical world by being crossroads for religions and civilizations. Home to six million people, Cilicia is one of the largest population concentrations in the Near East, as well an agriculturally productive area, owing to its large fertile plain of Çukurova. Adding the large population centers surrounding Cilicia, almost 10 million people reside within two hours' drive from the Adana city center. (Full article...)

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General images

The following are images from various Turkey-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1An Oil wrestling tournament in Istanbul. This has been the national sport of Turkey since Ottoman times. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 2First Ziraat Bank Headquarters (1925–29) in Ankara designed by Giulio Mongeri is an important symbol of the First National Architectural Movement. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 3Ankara Opera House, designed by Şevki Balmumcu (1933–34) and renovation by Paul Bonatz (1946–47). (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 4Karagöz and Hacivat are the lead characters of the traditional Turkish shadow play, popularized during the Ottoman period. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 5Esenboğa International Airport, Ankara (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 6Members of the Bayar cabinet wearing a white tie and top hat. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 7Fault lines and earthquakes (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 8Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem (1847–1914) was another prominent Turkish poet of the late Ottoman era. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 9Interior of the Sultanahmet Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 10Istanbul Sapphire (2006–11) is the tallest building in Turkey and 4th in Europe. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 11View from Maslak district in Istanbul. Istanbul's skyline has changed especially since the early 2000s. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 12Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 13Istanbul University Faculty of Science and Faculty of Literature Buildings (1944–52) designed by Sedad Hakkı Eldem and Emin Onat (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 14Turkish Delight (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 15Roosevelt, İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference which was held between 4–6 December 1943. (from History of Turkey)
Image 16Skycrapers in Levent district of Istanbul (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 17Topographic map of Turkey (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 18Anıtkabir designed by Emin Halid Onat and Ahmet Orhan Arda (1944–53) (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 19Namık Kemal was a prominent Turkish poet, novelist, playwright and journalist of the late-19th-century Ottoman Empire. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 20Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca was one of the most prolific Turkish poets of the Turkish Republic with more than 60 collections of his poems published, laureate of the Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 21Map showing the Anatolian Plate, the North Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Fault in Turkey. (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 22Thrace and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom in its maximum extent under Sitalces (431-424 BC) (from History of Turkey)
Image 23Beaches and marina of Kemer near Antalya on the Turkish Riviera (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 24Mehmed II enters Constantinople by Fausto Zonaro (from History of Turkey)
Image 25Istanbul (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 26View of Beydağları Coastal National Park (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 27Ankara (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 28Map of earthquakes in Turkey 1900–2017 (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 29Topkapı Palace, Istanbul. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 30Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) (from History of Turkey)
Image 31Orhan Veli Kanık was the founder of the Garip Movement in Turkish poetry. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 32Nuri Bilge Ceylan won a number of awards in the annual Cannes Film Festival, including the best director award at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for his film Üç Maymun ("Three Monkeys"). He has also won five FIPRESCI awards. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 33Turkish national basketball team won the silver medal in the 2010 FIBA World Championship. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 34Originally a church, later a mosque, and now a Grand mosque, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was built by the Byzantines in the 6th century. (from History of Turkey)
Image 35The Ishak Pasha Palace, Eastern Turkey. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 36Aynalıkavak Palace (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 37Turkish coffee (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 38Designed by Şekip Akalın, Ankara Central Station (1937) is a notable art deco design of its era. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 39A view from the interior of a traditional Turkish house, by John Frederick Lewis (1805–1875) (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 40Istanbul and the Bosphorus (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 41View of Dilek Peninsula-Büyük Menderes Delta National Park (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 42Antalya (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 43Köppen climate types of Turkey (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 44Tevfik Fikret (1867–1915) was a prominent Turkish poet of the late Ottoman era. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 45Sami Frashëri (1850–1904) and his wife Emine, May 1884. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 46Isbank Tower 1 (1995–2000) in Levent district of Istanbul (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 47The sultan of the golden age, Suleiman the Magnificent. (from History of Turkey)
Image 48One of the main entrance gates of the Dolmabahçe Palace. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 49View of Bursa from the hills near Mount Uludağ, the ancient Mysian Olympus (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 50Ahmed Hamdi Akseki Mosque (2013) (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 51Interior of the Şakirin Mosque (2005–09) (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 52Şakirin Mosque (2005–09) (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 53Mount Erciyes near Kayseri (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 54Kaçkar Mountains (from Geography of Turkey)
Image 55Mount Ararat (from Geography of Turkey)

Did you know - show different entries

... that the busts of Miklós Zrínyi and Sultan Suleiman, rivals at the Siege of Szigetvár in 1566, stand in the Hungarian-Turkish Friendship Park
(pictured) side-by-side rather than confronting one another? (October 7, 2013)
... that local boyars protested against the Russian annexation of Bessarabia after the Russo-Turkish War in 1812, arguing that the Ottoman Empire had no right to cede a Moldavian territory that was not theirs in the first place? (February 3, 2008) Wikipedia:Recent additions 203
... that Cold War-era spy Hüseyin Yıldırım, sentenced to life without parole in the United States, was later pardoned and secretly extradited to Turkey, where he stayed only one day in prison? (April 2, 2014)
... that Leyla Güngör scored a goal against Spain in her first game as a member of the Turkey women's national football team? (December 23, 2013)
... that Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan erected a Koranic school and an elementary school near the Ese Kapi Mosque in Istanbul? (May 9, 2012)

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Selected picture

Image 1the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
Image 2Kemer
Image 3Aydilge Sarp; Turkish singer, songwriter and novelist
Image 4Rize
Image 5An airplane with a nazar boncuğu symbol that is said to offer protection from the "evil eye".
Image 6Tünel, Istanbul
Image 7Atatürk praying
Image 8the Bosphorus Bridge
Image 9The tughra of Mahmud II. "Mahmud Han bin Abdulhamid muzaffer daima" ("Mahmud Khan son of Abdulhamid is forever victorious").
Image 10A Kocek
Image 11Safranbolu
Image 12Tarkan with Hungarian fans
Image 13The ancient Lake Abant Nature Park in Bolu
Image 14Hrant Dink funeral
Image 15Antalya
Image 161. picture on portal: The prominent towers of Dayro d-Mor Gabriel; 15th December 2005
Image 17Cappadocia
Image 18A tram in Istanbul
Image 19The sun setting over the Golden Horn in the city of Istanbul.
Image 20Lahmacun
Image 21Male Bellydancer in Istanbul
Image 22Yagli gures
Image 2318th-century Ottoman barber's apron
Image 24The Temple of Athena at Priene, an ancient site near Turunçlar in Aydın province.
Image 25Iznik, 16th-century vase
Image 26A faculty of Sakarya University
Image 27Ölüdeniz
Image 28Flag of Turkey, from flowers

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Muhammed Fethullah Gülen (born 27 April 1941) is a Turkish Islamic scholar, preacher, and a one-time opinion leader (as de facto leader of the Gülen movement: an international, faith-based civil society organization once aligned with Turkey's government, but since then outlawed as an alleged "armed terrorist group"). Gülen is designated an influential Ottomanist, Anatolian panethnicist, Islamic poet, writer, social critic, and activist–dissident developing a Nursian theological perspective that embraces democratic modernity, as a citizen of Turkey (until his denaturalization by the government in 2017) he was a local state imam from 1959 to 1981. Over the years, Gülen became a centrist political figure in Turkey prior to his being there as a fugitive. Since 1999, Gülen has lived in self-exile in the United States near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Gülen says his social criticisms are focused upon individuals' faith and morality and a lesser extent toward political ends and self describes as rejecting an Islamist political philosophy, his advocating instead for full participation within professions, society, and political life by religious and secular individuals who profess high moral or ethical principles and who wholly support secular rule, within Muslim-majority countries and elsewhere. Gülen founded the Gülen movement (known as the hizmet, meaning service in Turkish), which is a 3-to-6 million strong, volunteer-based movement in Turkey and around the world. (All Hizmet's schools, foundations and other entities in Turkey have been closed by the Turkish government following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.) Along with the movement's participants' (Gülenists') individual piety and/or ethical conduct, they promote education, civil society, and religious tolerance initiatives and establish social networks. These networks self-describe as originating spontaneously, their constituent local entities functioning independently from each other, existing, in the aggregate, as leaderless activist entities. "I really don’t know 0.1% of the people in this movement", Gülen has said. "I haven’t done much. I have just spoken out on what I believe. Because it [Gülen's teachings] made sense, people grasped it themselves." "I opened one school to see if people liked it. So they created more schools." Inasmuch as the movement includes individuals with advanced theological training serving as "imams" and spiritual counselors on the macro level, with these individuals' identities remaining confidential (reflecting such positions' technical illegality in Turkey, under the formerly Kemalist laws there outlawing religious orders), some observers argue that the movement thus includes a clandestine aspect. (Full article...)

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Burak Yılmaz Piri Reis Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Ahmet Necdet Sezer Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Nureddin Pasha Tuncay Şanlı İsmet İnönü Sıla (singer) Orhan Pamuk Erol Gelenbe Kemal Derviş Hande Yener Sertab Erener Said Altınordu Tarkan (singer) Junayd of Aydın Daron Acemoglu

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Play media

Lake Bafa Nature Park, 2015

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Videos from Turkey on Wikimedia Commons

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“

Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women.

”

~ Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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Turkish proverbs in Wikiquote

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Recognized content

	Alanya, Byzantine Empire, SMS Goeben, The Turk, List of sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, Italian War of 1521–1526, Italian War of 1542–1546, List of battleships of the Ottoman Empire, Rhodes blood libel
	2004 Istanbul summit, 2008 Turkish Grand Prix, Battle of Manzikert, Battle of Marash, Battle of Vaslui, Church of St. Polyeuctus, First Crusade, Great Zab, Hood event, Limyra Bridge, Siege of Szigetvár, Night Attack at Târgoviște, Third Perso-Turkic War, Walls of Constantinople, Gallipoli Campaign, Battle of Lone Pine