Turkey

Geography 

Area: 783.562 square kilometers (302.535 square miles). 

Population: 79749461 inhabitants (2011 estimate). 

Geographical features and landmarks: linking Turkey between the Asian and European continents, spanning a large area (97%) in the Asian continent, while Turkey's European form an area of ​​3% of the entire state. In Turkey Amadiqan Maúaan separating between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, two Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. 

Turkey is rectangular in shape with a length of 1,600 kilometers and 800 kilometers displayed and surrounded by the sea on three sides: the Aegean Sea (west) and the Black Sea (north) and the Mediterranean (south), and there is the Sea of ​​Marmara (northwest). 

Formed a diverse landscape in Turkey across the floor of many movements occurred in the region over thousands of years, which is somewhat active earthquakes and volcanoes.

Internal partition, and places milestone: Turkey consists of 81 administrative province, where each province is composed of areas totaling 923 total boycott. The provinces are usually called on the name of its capital. In terms of the central cities at the level of population Valtksama are as follows: Istanbul (13 million), Ankara (5 million), Izmir (4 million), Bursa (3 million) and Adana (2 million). 

Longitude and latitude: latitude 35 degrees and 43 degrees north, longitude 25 degrees and 45 degrees east longitude. 

Community 

Nationalities: What distinguishes the Turkish state that they see in every person is linked to a relationship of citizenship with the state "Turkey", and therefore there are no statistics internal minutes about the ethnic composition of the Dhol, while statistics indicate that foreign and international that the majority of the population are of Turkish race, Na constitutes almost 70. 75%. 

The Kurds are the largest race of non-Turkish race and live mainly in the southeastern provinces, and the number is estimated at approximately 20% of the population. There are other ethnic minorities are recognized, namely: Armenians, Greeks and Jews, and small groups of Abkhazians, Albanians, Arabs, Assyrians, Bosnians, Circassians, Georgians and «Alhamhinyin», and «Laz», and Pomak and Roma, and minorities of Western Europe. 

Turkey and live outside large communities of Turkey is estimated in the millions in Europe, America, Canada and Australia, where the form of the Turkish community in Germany, for example, the largest foreign community there. 

Demographics: Religion: Turkey is a secular state constitution grants freedom of belief and religion, despite the fact that the majority of Muslim population, where they make up about 97-99% of the population. The equivalent proportion of them Sunni (85-90%), while the Shiites and Alawites understanding (10-15%). 

Official Language: Turkish is the sole official language in Turkey. 

Other languages​​: Some statistics indicate that approximately 70-75% of the population speak it, speak the Kurdish language as approximately 18%. There are also other languages ​​such as Arabic, Bosnian, Circassian and Kurdish. 

Official Religion: No official religion of the Turkish state. 

Other religions: Christians, the proportion of 0.6% -0.9% (largest Orthodox denominations), Jews represent approximately 0.04% and other small communities such as the Yazidis and Sabean Mandaean and Manichaean. 

Date 

Old Date: Island Anatolia of the oldest inhabited areas in the world, where there are residential life began in the Neolithic period, and it appeared the famous Trojan. Since then, successive this place peoples and tribes, such as the European Hittites from India who founded the first major empire in the region during the eighteenth century BC. And until the thirteenth century, then the Assyrians who settled in some parts of southeast Turkey in 1950 BC. Until then rule 612 Elvirjeon Asia Minor and followed by the rise of Lydia in the seventh century BC. It was founded on historically central cities and colonies such as Ephesus and Byzantium (Constantinople, which became Istanbul). Then founded Armenia, the first state established in Anatolia, and then came the Persian invasion during the fifth and sixth centuries and then Alexander the Great in 334 BC .. then Tksmt Anatolia for a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms, which in turn surrendered to the Republic of Romania in the mid-first century BC. .. in 324 the Roman Emperor Constantine called the name of the new Rome on the city of Byzantium to become the new capital of the empire of Romania, Constantinople became the center of Eastern Christianity and cultural centers globally. 

After the fall of the Western Empire, Romania, Turkey became the capital of the Eastern Empire Romania where most of the complexity of the Ecumenical Councils. Then succeeded to occupy the mid-Anatolian Seljuks and the establishment of a Muslim kingdom where, as the Byzantines managed to recover from the Taurus during the tenth century and occupied Antioch and Aleppo. During the Crusades, founded the Kingdom of Konya in southern Turkey, in addition to the current Principality of Antioch, has tended toward the Fourth Crusade Constantinople itself and occupied in 1261 is that the state did not last long. 

He was inside Turkey Current (Anatolia) is divided into states and provinces, a small Islamist rival throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, even emerged Osman first warrior Byzantines and occupied cities and fortresses under their control, and then he and his successors Balastdarh towards small kingdoms neighbors and found that the Ottoman state. 

Osman first rule his kingdom until 1326, and after his death his son Orhan paint occupation authority succeeded Stock Exchange and expanded the borders of the state and the forces of the economy, to witness the first state in the custody of the stability of the Ottomans in Europe. It stations distinguishing in the Ottoman state, the control of Bayezid I on the city of months last property rum in Asia Minor, and the victory over Bulgaria in 1393, which hit Europe panicked and mobilized at the request of Pope Boniface IX crusade involving Hungary, France and Bavaria, Rhodes, Venice, England, Austria and the Knights of St. John , but failed to restore Alamatq territories. In 1402 landed in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire, however, after the defeat of Tamerlane the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara. This led to a fierce civil wars broke even managed Mohammed first of singling out the sentence, and then his successor, Mehmed II who conquered Constantinople and Istanbul called it, the "Takht-e-Islam" or "City of Islam". After that came Mehmed part of Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania. After his death, civil war broke out between and has gm and Bayezid II, and after the victory of Bayezid united Empire seconds. 

Contemporary history: the reign of Sultan Selim I, the Ottoman expansion in the south and east, occupied the majority of the regions of the Middle East after the Battle of Marj glutinous year 1516. and after the occupation of Mecca and Medina, and Jerusalem became sultan Selim I and Khalifa. Then succeeded by his son Suleiman the Magnificent, who arrived in the state in his reign to the height of its power militarily and economically, has concluded the first alliance between Alosmanin and Europe represented by France against Europe itself, as continued military conquests. After his death, the state would at least began slowly, and teams Janissaries became a tool of state power to the tool weakness Fajlat number of sultans and bone the breasts and killed others. It also lagged the Ottoman Empire on the achievements of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, where the West developed a new system of life. Continued "phase of stagnation" this until the nineteenth century sultans began trying to update the European transport, uniforms enter the western and European schools were canceled and replaced by the Janissaries regular teams in the reign of Mahmud II. Then began the first reform Abdul Majid, known as "the period of regulation", but defeats the state and the regions of alienation exacerbated by the continued and, to the extent that the Ottoman Empire declared bankruptcy twice in that period. In 1878 Abdul Hamid II tried to stop the labor reforms, which culminated in the declaration of the Ottoman Constitution and the opening of Parliament, what has been shown to curse Almsahlin. 

Failure Abdul Hamid II in the control of the state, federal and became the country's rulers actual, Vchrisoa Turkish nationalism in the country and abroad. During the First World War, the state was part of the Axis powers that defeated and forced to evacuate all non-Turkish territory with the signing of a truce Modros 1918. 


After that, Turkey has been a center of Ottoman rule until 1922, where dislocation Mohammed VI, last sultans, and abolished by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Caliphate final in 1924 was dominated by Turkey after the First World War nationalist movement headed by Ataturk, whose name means "Father of the Turks", has announced the establishment of the Turkish Republic and took over the presidency in 1923, until his death in 1938, Atatürk succeeded in conducting the secular regime in Turkey, to lay several Western habits and replace them write Arabic in Latin letters. 

Turkish Republic remained neutral in most of the Second World War, but they entered the side of the Allies in 1945 and in 1945 became a member of the United Nations. Turkey has been facing difficulties with Greece in the suppression of the Communist tide, and after the war, the Soviet Union emerged as the demands of military bases in the Turkish Straits, which prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947, which included a major intervention for the American army, in addition to economic support. 

In 1945, over control of the one-party system and the transformation to democracy, pluralism, which is sometimes disrupted by the military coups occurred in the years 1960, 1971 and 1980 and 1997. Joined the Turkish Republic to NATO in 1952, and became a major force in the face of the expansion of the Soviet Union in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1974, Turkey invaded Cyprus in response to the Council's support for the Greek military coup against the regime there. The military operation ended with the victory of the Turkish troops, and the fall of the Greek junta in Athens after nine years.

Times, electricity, and units of measure 

Timezone compared Pegrenic: +2. Daylight saving time in the difference from Greenwich +3. Daylight Saving Time begins on March 29 / March and ends on 25 October / October 

Prayer Timings: Prayer Time in Turkey vary from one region to another as they change a few minutes on the length of the year. Here prayer timings in Istanbul in the month of February: Dawn: 5:32 / Sunrise: 7:05 / pm: 12:18 / era: 3:08 / Morocco: 5:32 / Dinner: 7:05. 

Units of measurement: the dimensions and weights and sizes: the metric system in the dimensions and sizes. 

Electrical plugs: WA-9C Travel Plug Adapter for Europe ("Type C" CEE 7/16 Europlug) 

Electric voltage (voltage): 220 volts 

Hertz electric: 50 Hz. 

Media 

Turkey is a democratic republic in which activates the media freely through laws and constitutional provisions gives him a prominent place. So the media work has a big role in the dissemination of facts and knowledge, even if they are contrary to the policy of the state. 

Of the most prominent newspapers, which printed and distributed in Turkey: Akşam, Anadolu'da Vakit, Bugün, Cumhuriyet, Güneş, Hürriyet, Habertürk, Milliyet, Sabah, Zaman. To review the full list of newspapers including regional newspapers, please check this link.

Turkey to follow the news in Arabic can follow the site today Turkey or Turkish Arabic satellite. 

Culture of life 

Customs and traditions inherited: Turkish culture is very diverse mix of Oguz and Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire, which is itself a continuation of the Greek, Romanian and Western and Islamic cultures. The fact that this diversity originated the passage of a lot of peoples across Anatolia throughout history. 

The month of Ramadan occupies a special place in Turkish customs and traditions handed down, and side to celebrate the great lives by the Turks and the third meal between breakfast and especially the fast, as famous for this month Boclat of its own, such as Dawood Pasha Kofta 

Signals, especially for women: women enjoy in Turkey premium quite a bit of rights and prestige good, although it lags behind some notable things about European countries and the case better than most Arab states. The fact that Turkey is a secular state, there are no restrictions on women in public life in terms of clothing and daily habits. 

Mobility in Turkey 

Road transport: the fact that the Turkish Republic is located in an area of great importance between the continents of Asia and Europe, where the transportation Madmaka constitute a key role in the economy and life. Roads sector is returned to the state by nearly 1.4 billion dollars in 1999, for example, thanks to the fees and taxes imposed on the use of international roads in particular. Form of roads, streets and means of land transport essential in the Turkish Republic, most notably those that connect Istanbul Ankara (O-4), and by the Gaziantep-Adana (O-52), and coastal roads (O-31 and O-32), which connects Izmir coastal cities of South and through the Izmir-Manisa. As used buses to transport passengers between the cities of medium and long distances. 

Ticket prices in the bus, tram and metro which is almost uniform pounds and a half pound. In the big cities are considered within the metro and tram networks (above and below ground) of transportation central common, along with private and public buses. It is also taxis in cities within the commonplace and essential to navigate. 

Train: Tracking Turkish Railways TCDD to government ownership, which operates all rail lines that are up to a length of 10.991 km. The number of passengers on trains inside the Turkish Republic in 2009 nearly 7118699 passengers.