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TURKEY

[internet resources]

Map of Turkey

 

Quick Facts:

Official Name: Republic of Turkey
Local Name: Turkiye Cumhuriyeti
Population: 70,413,958 (July 2006 est.)
Capital Cit y : Ankara
Languages: Turkish (official), Kurdish, Dimli (or Zaza), Azeri, Kabardian note: there is also a substantial Gagauz population in the Europe part of Turkey
Official Currency: Turkish lira
Ethnic Groups: Turkish, Kurdish
Religions: Muslim (mostly Sunni), other (mostly Christians and Jews)

Turkish FlagFlag

Red with a vertical white crescent (the closed portion is toward the hoist side) and white five-pointed star centered just outside the crescent opening. The white crescent and star, symbols of Islam, are placed slightly to the left on the red field, and that shade of red dates back to the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.


The term Turkey, although sometimes used to signify the Ottoman Empire, was not assigned to a specific political entity or geographic area until the republic was founded in 1923. The conquering Turks called Asia Minor, the large peninsular territory they had wrested from the Byzantine Empire, by its Greek name, Anatolé (sunrise; figuratively, the East), or Anatolia. The term Anatolia is also used when events described affected both that region and Turkish Thrace (" Turkey-in-Europe") because of the two areas' closely linked political, social, and cultural development.

Anatolia is a bridge connecting the Middle East and Europe, and it shares in the history of both those parts of the world. Despite the diversity of its peoples and their cultures, and the constantly shifting borders of its ethnic map, Anatolia has a history characterized by remarkable continuity. Wave after wave of conquerors and settlers have imposed their language and other unique features of their culture on it, but they also have invariably assimilated the customs of the peoples who preceded them.

The history of Turkey encompasses, first, the history of Anatolia before the coming of the Turks and of the civilizations--Hittite, Thracian, Hellenistic, and Byzantine--of which the Turkish nation is the heir by assimilation or example. Second, it includes the history of the Turkish peoples, including the Seljuks, who brought Islam and the Turkish language to Anatolia. Third, it is the history of the Ottoman Empire, a vast, cosmopolitan, pan-Islamic state that developed from a small Turkish amirate in Anatolia and that for centuries was a world power.

Finally, Turkey's history is that of the republic established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), called Atatürk--the "Father Turk." The creation of the new republic in the heartland of the old Islamic empire was achieved in the face of internal traditionalist opposition and foreign intervention. Atatürk's goal was to build on the ruins of Ottoman Turkey a new country and society patterned directly on Western Europe. He equated Westernization with the introduction of technology, the modernization of administration, and the evolution of democratic institutions. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community; over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy, enabling it to begin accession membership talks with the European Union.

Information and maps above taken from Library of Congress Country Studies and the CIA World Fact Book. Unless otherwise specified, images sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Turkey Internet Resources

This page contains convenient starting points for exploring web sites related to Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.  To make this page easier to load and use, we generally have limited the list to those sites which contain substantial collections of links to information on these subjects.  The views reflected on any web site linked below do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center.  We provide these links as a service to the public.

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