Turkey travel guide — Turkey tourism and travel information

Turkey

Turkey (officially the Republic of Turkey) is a country with territory located in the southwestern part of Asia. and a small part in southern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, forms the core of the country.

Turkey (in Turkish Türkiye) is bordered to the east by Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, to the south by Iraq and Syria, and to the west by the Aegean Sea and its islands, Greece and Bulgaria.

Turkey geography

Turkey forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, with the division between the two running from the Black Sea to the north down along the Bosporus strait through the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles strait to the Aegean Sea and the larger Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Anatolian peninsula consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, in between the Pontus range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. To the east is found a more mountainous landscape, home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and the Araks, as well as Lake Van and Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at 5,166 m.

The climate is a Mediterranean temperate climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters, though conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Turkey is also prone to very severe earthquakes. The capital city is Ankara, but the largest city is Istanbul. Other important cities include Izmir, Bursa, Adana, Izmit (Kocaeli), Konya, Diyarbakir, Antalya, and Samsun.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Turkey".