Useful Info

Fast Facts about Turkey :

Area : 783,562.0 sq km (302,533.29 sq mi)
Population : 81,619,392
Official Name : Republic of Turkey
Form of Government : Republican Parliamentary Democracy
Capital City : Ankara
Currency : Currency unit in Turkey is Turkish Lira (TL)
1 TL = 100 Kuruş (Piastre)
The banknotes are 200, 100, 50, 20, 5 TL
The coins are 1 TL, 50 Kuruş, 25 Kuruş, 10 Kuruş, 5 Kuruş
Local Time : G.M.T. + 2 hours
Language : Turkish. It is written with Latin alphabet letters
Measures : In metric system (kilogram and meter)
Electricity : 220 Volts AC. Cycles 50 Mz
Tap Water : It has been chlorinated but my have strong taste

Turkey sits astride Europe and Asia. Turkey is surrounded on three sides by the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Aegean Sea. While the portion of European Turkey may be small (5 percent of its land), the country’s largest urban area, Istanbul, is there. With 10.1 million people, Istanbul is the second most populous European city, after Moscow. The dry plateau of Anatolia dominates the Asian part of Turkey, and high mountains flank the plateau in the north, east, and south. Turkey's highest mountain, Mount Ararat has two peaks, with Great Ararat reaching 5,165 meters (16,945 feet). The mountain is considered sacred by many people and is believed to be where Noah beached his ark after the great flood. The coastal areas of Anatolia consist of fertile lowlands with major cities.

Turkey is home to one of the earliest settlements in the world. Built 8,800 years ago, Catal Hoyuk was a labyrinth of 150 mud homes joined together. There were no streets in between, so people had to enter the homes through holes in the roof! About 4,000 years ago, the Hittites created an empire in the central part of what is now called Turkey in Anatolia. They ruled for hundreds of years. The Trojan War took place when the Hittites were losing power. The ruins of the city of Troy are believed to be in the city of Hissarlik in Anatolia. King Midas ruled western Turkey around 700 B.C. In 334 B.C., Alexander the Great took Anatolia under Macedonian Greek rule until Rome took over and Anatolia became part of Roman Asia Minor. In A.D. 330, Constantine became the Roman emperor and formed a new capital called Constantinople. After the fall of the Roman Empire it became part of the Byzantine Empire. The city of Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans in 1453 and Turkey became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire, defeated in World War I, collapsed in 1922. After World War I, the country was invaded by army forces of some European countries, which led to the Turkish war of Independence in 1920, led by Mustafa Kemal, known as Atatürk (Father of the Turks), who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and sought to transform a conservative Islamic society into a secular westernized state.

Most of Turkey’s trade is with Europe, and millions of European vacationers come to Turkey each year.

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