Portal:Turkey
Merhaba! Türkiye portalına hoşgeldiniz. Hi! Welcome to the Turkey portal.
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly in Anatolia in West Asia, with a smaller part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq, Syria, and the Mediterranean Sea (and Cyprus) to the south; and the Aegean Sea, Greece, and Bulgaria to the west. Turkey is home to over 85 million people; most are ethnic Turks, while ethnic Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Officially a secular state, Turkey has a Muslim-majority population. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city; Istanbul is its largest city, and its economic and financial center, as well as the largest city in Europe. Other major cities include İzmir, Bursa and Antalya.
Human habitation began in the Late Paleolithic. Home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe and some of the earliest farming areas, present-day Turkey was inhabited by various ancient peoples. Hattians were assimilated by the incoming Anatolian peoples. Increasing diversity during Classical Anatolia transitioned into cultural Hellenization following the conquests of Alexander the Great; Hellenization continued during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The Seljuk Turks began migrating into Anatolia in the 11th century, starting the Turkification process. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into Turkish principalities. Beginning in 1299, the Ottomans united the principalities and expanded; Mehmed II conquered Istanbul in 1453. During the reigns of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became a global power. From 1789 onwards, the empire saw major transformation, reforms, and centralization while its territory declined.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in large-scale loss of life and mass migration into modern-day Turkey from the Balkans, Caucasus, and Crimea. Under the control of the Three Pashas, the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in 1914, during which the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian subjects. After its defeat, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned. The Turkish War of Independence resulted in the abolition of the sultanate in 1922 and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. The Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, modelled on the reforms initiated by the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but was involved in the Korean War. Coups in 1960 and 1980 interrupted the transition to a multi-party system.
Turkey is an upper-middle-income and emerging country; its economy is the world's 18th-largest by nominal GDP and 11th-largest by purchasing power parity. It is a unitary presidential republic. Turkey is a founding member of the OECD, G20, and Organization of Turkic States. With a geopolitically significant location, Turkey is a regional power and an early member of NATO. An EU-candidate, Turkey is part of the EU Customs Union, CoE, OIC, and TURKSOY. Turkey has coastal plains, a high central plateau, and various mountain ranges; its climate is temperate with harsher conditions in the interior. Home to three biodiversity hotspots, Turkey is prone to frequent earthquakes and is highly vulnerable to climate change. Turkey has universal healthcare, growing access to education, and increasing innovativeness. It is a leading TV content exporter. With 21 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 30 UNESCO intangible cultural heritage inscriptions, and a rich and diverse cuisine, Turkey is the fourth most visited country in the world. (Full article...)
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Turkish people or Turks (Turkish: Türkler) are the largest Turkic people who speak various dialects of the Turkish language and form a majority in Turkey and Northern Cyprus. In addition, centuries-old ethnic Turkish communities still live across other former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a Turk as anyone who is a citizen of Turkey. While the legal use of the term Turkish as it pertains to a citizen of Turkey is different from the term's ethnic definition, the majority of the Turkish population (an estimated 70 to 75 percent) are of Turkish ethnicity. The vast majority of Turks are Muslims and follow the Sunni and Alevi faith.
The ethnic Turks can therefore be distinguished by a number of cultural and regional variants, but do not function as separate ethnic groups. In particular, the culture of the Anatolian Turks in Asia Minor has underlain and influenced the Turkish nationalist ideology. Other Turkish groups include the Rumelian Turks (also referred to as Balkan Turks) historically located in the Balkans; Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus, Meskhetian Turks originally based in Meskheti, Georgia; and ethnic Turkish people across the Middle East, where they are also called Turkmen or Turkoman in the Levant (e.g. Iraqi Turkmen, Syrian Turkmen, Lebanese Turkmen, etc.). Consequently, the Turks form the largest minority group in Bulgaria, the second largest minority group in Iraq, Libya, North Macedonia, and Syria, and the third largest minority group in Kosovo. They also form substantial communities in the Western Thrace region of Greece, the Dobruja region of Romania, the Akkar region in Lebanon, as well as minority groups in other post-Ottoman Balkan and Middle Eastern countries. The mass immigration of Turks also led to them forming the largest ethnic minority group in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. There are also Turkish communities in other parts of Europe as well as in North America, Australia and the Post-Soviet states. Turks are the 13th largest ethnic group in the world. (Full article...)General images
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- ... that the mosque of Hirami Ahmet Pasha (pictured) in Istanbul is the smallest Byzantine church of Constantinople still extant? (November 18, 2007) Wikipedia:Recent additions 187
- ... that the Mecelle, the Ottoman civil code of 1877, was the first attempt to codify part of the laws of an Islamic state? (January 7, 2007) Wikipedia:Recent additions 115
- ... that the Shrapnel Valley Cemetery at Gallipoli is named after the distinctive sound produced by shrapnel in the area? (October 13, 2007)
- ... that although banned in 1943, the Baklahorani carnival, in Istanbul, revived after nearly 70 years? (January 19, 2012)
- ... that the third officer of the MV Horizon-1, a cargo ship recently hijacked by Somali pirates, is a 24-year old Turkish woman? (July 27, 2009) Wikipedia:Recent additions 246
- ... that the oldest known lemon squeezers were found in Kütahya, Turkey and date to the first quarter of the 18th century? (March 25, 2008) Wikipedia:Recent additions 213
- ... that in the 16th century the Church of St. Mary of Constantinople (pictured) in Istanbul was the center of a quarter mainly inhabited by Italians deported from the city of Caffa in Crimea? (December 4, 2011)
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Ferit Orhan Pamuk (born 7 June 1952; Turkish pronunciation: [feˈɾit oɾˈhan paˈmuk]) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk's novels include Silent House, The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red and Snow. He is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018. (Full article...)Selected video -
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“ | Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women. | ” |
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