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Republic of TurkeyTürkiye Cumhuriyeti
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: Turkish: Yurtta Sulh, Cihanda Sulh (English: "Peace at Home, Peace in the World")
Anthem: İstiklâl Marşı (English: "Independence March")
Capital	Ankara
Largest city	İstanbul
Official languages	Turkish (Türkçe)
Government	Secular Republic
• Founder	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
• President of the Republic	Ahmet Necdet Sezer
• Prime Minister	Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Succession to the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Lausanne
• War of Independence	19 May 1919
• Formation of Parliament	23 April 1920
• Declaration of Republic	29 October 1923
• Water (%)	1.3
Population
• 2005 estimate	72,600,000 (17th)
• 2000 census	67,803,927
GDP (PPP)	2006 estimate
• Total	$612.3 billion (17th)
• Per capita	$8,385 (75th)
HDI (2006)	0.757 high (92nd)
Currency	New Turkish Lira (TRY)
Time zone	UTC+2 (EET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+3 (EEST)
Calling code	90
ISO 3166 code	TR
Internet TLD	.tr
Population and population density rankings based on 2005 figures.  The New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası) replaced the old Turkish Lira on 1 January 2005. A graphical timeline is available at History of the Republic of Turkey

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), officially the Republic of Turkey (Audio file "asd.ogg" not found), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Southwestern Asia and the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Iran and the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. In addition, it borders the Black Sea to the north; the Aegean Sea to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara that is used by geographers to mark the border between Europe and Asia, thus making the country transcontinental.

The region comprising modern Turkey has seen the birth of major civilisations including the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Owing to its strategic location at the intersect of two continents, Turkey's culture is a unique blend of eastern and western tradition, often described as a bridge between the two civilisations. With a powerful regional presence from the Adriatic to China in the Eurasian landbelt between Russia and India, Turkey has come to acquire increasing strategic significance.

Turkey is a democratic, secular, constitutional republic whose political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War. Since then, Turkey has increasingly integrated with the West while continuing to foster relations with Eastern world. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the OIC, the OECD and the OSCE, a member state of the Council of Europe since 1949 and of the NATO since 1952. Since 2005, Turkey is in accession negotiations with the European Union, having been an associate member since 1963.

Etymology

The name for Turkey in the Turkish language, Türkiye, subdivides into two words: Türk, meaning "strong" in Old Turkish and usually signifying the inhabitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish or Turkic peoples, a later form of "tu-kin", name given by the Chinese to the people living south of the Altay Mountains of Central Asia as early as 177 BC; and the abstract suffix -iye, which means "owner" or "related to". The term "Türk" or "Türük" was first used as an autonym in the Orkhon inscriptions of the Göktürks (English: Sky Turks) of Central Asia. The English word "Turkey" is derived from the Medieval Latin "Turchia" (c.1369).

History

Antiquity

The region of Asia Minor, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world, because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to pottery Neolithic), Nevali Cori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacilar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered as the earliest human settlements in the world. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues forward into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European, Semitic and Kartvelian languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated. Other authors have proposed an Anatolian origin for the Etruscans of ancient Italy.

The first major empire in the area was that of the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th century BCE. Subsequently, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in the 7th century BCE. The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states was Lydia, Caria and Lycia. The Lydians and Lycians spoke languages that were fundamentally Indo-European, but both languages had acquired non-Indo-European elements prior to the Hittite and Hellenic periods.

Coastal Anatolia (Ionia) meanwhile was settled by Greeks. The entire area was overrun by the Persians during the 6th and 5th centuries and fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BCE. Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms (including Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamum, and Pontus), all of which had succumbed to Rome by the mid-1st century BCE. In 324 CE the Roman emperor Constantine I chose Constantinople (now Istanbul) as the capital of the Roman Empire. It subsequently became the capital of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.

History of Turks and the Ottoman Empire

The House of Seljuk was a branch of the Kinik Oğuz Turks who in the 9th century lived on the periphery of the Muslim world, north of the Caspian and Aral seas in the Yabghu Khaganate of the Oğuz confederacy. In the 10th century, the Seljuks migrated from their ancestral homelands into the eastern Anatolian regions which had been an area of settlement for Oğuz Turkic tribes since the end of the first millennium.

Following their victory over the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Turks began to abandon their nomadic roots in favour of a permanent role in Anatolia, bringing rise to the Seljuk Empire. The empire was not to last however, by 1243 the Seljuk armies were defeated by the Mongols and the power of the empire slowly disintegrated. In its wake, one of the Turkish principalities governed by Osman I was to evolve into the Ottoman Empire, thus filling the void left by the collapsed Seljuks and Byzantine Greeks.

The Ottoman Empire interacted with both Eastern and Western cultures throughout its 623-year history. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was among the world's most powerful political entities, often locking horns with the powers of eastern Europe in its steady advance through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following years of decline, the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914 - a war in which it was ultimately defeated. After the war, the victorious Allied Powers sought the dismemberment of the Ottoman state through the Treaty of Sèvres.

Republican era

The Occupation of Istanbul and Izmir by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I prompted the establishment of the Turkish national movement. Under the leadership Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were repelled and the country saw the birth of the new Turkish state. On November 1, 1922, the the newly founded parliament formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 1923 led to the international recognization of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in the new capital of Ankara.

Kemal Pasha became the republic's first president and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic from the remnants of its Ottoman past. According to the Law on Family Names, the Turkish parliament presented Mustafa Kemal with the honorific name "Atatürk" (English: Father of the Turks) in 1934.

Turkey entered the World War II on the side of the Allies in the later stages of the war as a ceremonial gesture and became a charter member of the United Nations in 1945. Difficulties faced by Greece after World War II in quelling a communist rebellion, along with demands by the Soviet Union for military bases in the Turkish Straits, prompted the United States to declare the Truman Doctrine in 1947. The doctrine enunciated American intentions to guarantee the security of Turkey and Greece, and resulted in large scale US military and economic support.

After participating with United Nations forces in the Korean conflict, Turkey joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterrenean. Following a decade of intercommunal violence on the island of Cyprus and subsequent Athens inspired coup, Turkey military intervened resulting in the breakway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus recognised only by Turkey. The following decades were also marked by a period of political instability resulting in a number of military coups d'états: Coup of 1960, coup by memorandum of 1971, coup of 1980 and the post-modern coup d'état of 1997. The period of the Seventies and Eighties was marked by political instability and rapid, but at times erratic, economic growth.

Government and politics

Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a Republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism. Turkey' constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state. The current constitution was ratified by referendum in 1982 and has been amended numerous times in recent years.

The head of State is the President of the Republic, though he exercices a largely ceremonial post. The president is elected for a seven-year term by the parliament but he is not required to be one of its members. The current President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was elected on May 16, 2000, after having served as the President of the Constitutional Court. The executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers that make up the government, whereas the legislative power is vested in the unicameral parliament, Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature, and the Constitutional Court is charged with ruling on the conformity of laws and regulations with the constitution. The Council of State is the court of last resort for administrative cases, and High Court of Appeals for all others.

The Prime Minister is elected by the parliament through a vote of confidence in his government, and he is generally the head of the party that has won the elections. The current Prime Minister is the former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose Islamic conservative AKP won an absolute majority of parliamentary seats in the general elections of 2002 that was organized in the aftermath of the economic crisis of 2001. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Ministers have to be members of the parliament; though in most cases they are (one notable exception was Kemal Derviş, who was the Minister of Finance following the financial crisis of 2001; he is currently the president of the UN Development Programme).

The members of parliament are elected for a five-year term by mitigated proportional representation with a national election threshold of 10%. There are 85 electoral districts that represent the 81 administrative provinces of Turkey (Istanbul is divided into three electoral districts whereas Ankara and Izmir are divided into two each because of their large populations). To avoid a hung parliament and its excessive political fragmentation, only parties that win at least 10% of the national vote in a national parliamentary election gain the right to parliamentary representation. As a result of this threshold, only two parties were able to obtain that right during the last elections. Independent candidates may run, and to be elected, they must only win 10% of the vote in the district they are running from. Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1933 and every Turkish citizen that has turned 18 years of age has the right to vote. As of 2004, there were 50 registered political parties in Turkey, whose ideologies range from the far-left to the far-right. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or separatist, or ban their existence altogether.

The military has traditionally been a politically powerful institution, considered as the guardians of Atatürk's Republic. The protection of the Turkish Constitution and the unity of the country is given by law to the Turkish Armed Forces and it therefore plays a formal political role via the National Security Council (NSC) as the guardian of the secular, unitary nature of the republic and the reforms of Atatürk. Through the NSC, the army contributes to recommendations for defense policy against any threat to the country, including those pertaining to ethnic separatism or religious extremism. In recent years, reforms led to efforts to defunct military's constitutional responsibilities under the program of compliance with the EU demands and an increased civilian presence on the NSC. Despite its perceived alleged influence in civilian affairs, the military owns strong unequivocal support from the nation and is considered to be Turkey's most trusted institution.

Foreign Relations

Turkey's main political, economic and military relations have remained rooted within the West since the foundation of the republic. Turkey has manifested an atlantist approach in many regional and international affairs since the Second Cairo Conference, its participation in the Korean War, and its subsequent adhesion to NATO in 1952. It remained a bulwark against the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, and has participated in many NATO-led peacekeeping missions since the fall of the Berlin Wall. For many historical and cultural reasons, this has led to an interesting mix of trends in Turkey's foreign policy. Turkey is the only OIC member which is also a member of NATO; and its relations with Israel constitute one of the key partnerships in the Middle East. Owing to its secular traditions, Turkey has always viewed suspiciously certain countries in the region and this has caused tensions in the past, particularly with its largest neighbour, Iran. Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey has actively been building strong relations with former Communist countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and this has concretized in many reciprocal investments and migratory currents between these states and Turkey.

The European Union remains Turkey's biggest trading partner and the presence of a well-established Turkish diaspora in Europe has contributed to the development of extensive relations between the two parties over the years. Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe in 1949, applied for associate membership of the EEC (predecessor of the EU) in 1959 and became an associate member in 1963. After decades of political negotiations, Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, reached a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and has officially begun accession negotiations on October 3, 2005. It is believed that the accession process will take at least 15 years because of Turkey's size and the depth of disagreements over certain issues.

Historically, relations with neighbouring Greece have known periods of tension. The long divided island of Cyprus and the disputes over the air and sea boundaries of the Aegean Sea remain the main issues of disagreement between the two neighbours. Recently, the issue of Cyprus has become one of the main points of contention in Turkey's accession negotations with the EU since Turkey does not recognise Cyprus and instead supports the de facto independent Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Nonetheless, following the consecutive earthquakes of 1999 in both Turkey and Greece, and the prompt response of aid and rescue teams from both sides, the two nations have entered a much more positive period in their relations, with Greece actively supporting Turkey's candidacy to enter the European Union.

Even though Turkey participated in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan after September 11, the Iraq war faced strong domestic opposition in Turkey and as such, the Turkish Parliament failed to reach the necessary majority of approval votes for allowing US troops to attack Iraq from Turkey's south-eastern border, with 264 approval votes and 250 against. This led to a period of cooling in relations between the US and Turkey and fears that they might have been damaged as a result, particularly in light of the current situation of Iraq. Turkey is particularly cautious about an independent Kurdish state arising from a destabilised Iraq since it has fought an insurgent war on its soil, in which an estimated 37,000 people lost their lives, against the PKK (listed as a terrorist organization by a number of states and organisations, including the USA and the EU). This led the Turkish government to put pressure on the US to clamp down on insurgent training camps in northern Iraq, without much success.

Military

The Turkish Armed Forces consists of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. The Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard operate as parts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in peacetime; whereas they are subordinated to the Army and Navy Commands respectively in wartime, during which they have both internal law enforcement and military functions.

The Chief of the General Staff is appointed by the President, and he is responsible to the Prime Minister. The Council of Ministers is responsible to the parliament for matters of national security and the adequate preparation of the armed forces to defend the country. However, the authority to declare war and to deploy the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries or to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey rests solely with the parliament. The actual Commander of the armed forces is the Chief of the General Staff General Yaşar Büyükanıt who succeeded General Hilmi Özkök on August 26, 2006.

The Turkish Armed Forces, with a combined strength of 1,043,550 uniformed personnel, is the second largest standing armed force in NATO, after the United States Armed Forces. Every fit heterosexual male Turkish citizen is required to serve in the military for time periods ranging from one to fifteen months, depending on his education and job location (homosexuals have the right to be exempt, if they request).

In 1998, Turkey announced a modernization programme worth some $31 billion over a period of ten years in varying projects including tanks, helicopters and assault rifles. Turkey is also a level three contributor to the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, gaining an opportunity to develop and influence the creation of the next generation fighter spearheaded by the United States.

In addition to its participation in the Korean War, Turkey has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions, various missions in the former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Turkey maintains 36,000 troops in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the US stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force since 2001. In 2006, the Turkish parliament deployed a peacekeeping force of Navy patrol vessels and around 700 ground troops as part of an expanded United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in wake of the Israeli-Lebanon conflict.

Administrative divisions

The territory of Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces (Turkish: singular: il, plural: iller) for administrative purposes. In turn, each province is divided into districts (Turkish: singular: ilçe, plural: ilçeler), for a total of 923 districts. Provinces usually bear the same name as their provincial capitals, also called the central district; exceptions to this are the provinces of Hatay (capital: Antakya), Kocaeli (capital: İzmit) and Sakarya (capital: Adapazarı). Provinces with the largest populations are the provinces of İstanbul (+10 million), Ankara (+4 million), İzmir (+3.4 million), Bursa (+2.1 million), Konya (+2.2 million) and Adana (+1.85 million).

The provinces are organized into 7 regions for census purposes, however they do not represent an administrative structure.

The capital city of Turkey is Ankara, but the biggest city and the pre-Republican capital of İstanbul still remains the financial, economic and cultural center of the country. Other important cities include İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Trabzon, Malatya, Gaziantep, Erzurum, Kayseri, İzmit, Konya, Mersin, Eskişehir, Diyarbakır, Antalya and Samsun. An estimated 67% of Turkey's population live in urban centers. In all, 12 cities have populations that exceed 500,000 and 48 cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Major Cities:

• İstanbul - 9,085,599
• Ankara - 3,540,522
• İzmir - 2,409,000
• Bursa - 1,195,000
• Adana - 1,130,710
• Gaziantep - 854,000
• Konya - 743,000
• Antalya - 603,000

(Population figures are given according to the 2000 census)

Geography and climate

The territory of Turkey is more than 1,600 kilometers (1,031 mi) long and 800 km wide, giving it a roughly rectangular shape. Turkey's area, inclusive of lakes, occupies 779,452 square kilometers (km²) (300,948 sq mi), of which 755,688 km² (291,773 sq mi) are in Western Asia and 23,764 km² (9,175 sq mi) in Europe, thus making Turkey a transcontinental country. Turkey's size makes it the world's 37th-largest country (after Mozambique). It is somewhat bigger than Chile or the US state of Texas. Turkey is encircled by seas on three sides: Aegean Sea to the west, the Black Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Turkey also contains the Sea of Marmara in the northwest.

The European section of Turkey, in the northwest, is Eastern Thrace, and forms the borders of Turkey with Greece and Bulgaria. The Asian part of the country, Anatolia (also called the Asia Minor), consists of a high central plateau with narrow coastal plains, in between the Köroğlu and East-Black Sea mountain range to the north and the Taurus Mountains to the south. Eastern Turkey has a more mountainous landscape, and is home to the sources of rivers such as the Euphrates, Tigris and Aras, and contains Lake Van and Mount Ararat, Turkey's highest point at 5,137 m (16,853 ft). The land borders of Turkey total 2,573 km (1,599 mi), and the coastlines (including islands) total another 8,333 km (5,178 mi).

Turkey is geographically divided into seven regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and the Mediterranean. The uneven north Anatolian terrain running along the Black Sea resembles a long, narrow belt. This region comprises approximately 1/6 of Turkey's total land area. As a general trend, the inland Anatolian plateau becomes increasingly rugged as it progresses eastward

Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of complex earth movements that have shaped the region over thousands of years and still manifest themselves in fairly frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles owe their existence to the fault lines running through Turkey that led to the creation of the Black Sea. There is an earthquake fault line across the north of the country from west to east.

The climate is a Mediterranean temperate climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, wet and cold winters, though conditions can be much harsher in the more arid interior. Mountains close to the coast prevent Mediterranean influences from extending inland, giving the interior of Turkey a continental climate with distinct seasons. The central Anatolian Plateau is much more subject to extremes than are the coastal areas. Winters on the plateau are especially severe. Temperatures of -30°C to -40°C can occur in the mountainous areas in the east, and snow may lie on the ground 120 days of the year. In the west, winter temperatures average below 1°C. Summers are hot and dry, with temperatures above 30°C. Annual precipitation averages about 400 millimeters, with actual amounts determined by elevation. The driest regions are the Konya plain and the Malatya plain, where annual rainfall frequently is less than 300 millimeters. May is generally the wettest month whereas July and August are the most dry.

Economy

For most of its republican history, Turkey has adhered to a quasi-statist approach, with strict government controls over private sector participation, foreign trade, and foreign direct investment. However, during the 1980s, Turkey began a series of reforms, initiated by Prime Minister Turgut Özal and designed to shift the economy from a statist, insulated system to a more private-sector, market-based model. The reforms spurred rapid growth, but this growth was punctuated by sharp recessions and financial crises in 1994, 1999 (following the earthquake of that year), and 2001, resulting in an average of 4% GDP growth per annum between 1981 and 2003. Lack of additional reforms, combined with large and growing public sector deficits and widespread corruption resulted in high inflation, a weak banking sector and increased macroeconomic volatility.

Since the economic crisis of 2001 and the reforms initiated by the finance minister of the time, Kemal Derviş, the inflation has fallen to single-digit numbers, investor-confidence and foreign investment has soared while unemployment has decreased. Turkey has gradually opened up its markets through economic reforms by reducing government controls on foreign trade and investment and the privatisation of publicly-owned industries and the liberalisation of many sectors to private and foreign participation has continued amid political debate.

The GDP growth rate for 2005 was 7.4%, thus making Turkey one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Turkey's GDP currently ranks 17th in the world and Turkey is a member of G20 industrial nations which brings together the 20 most industrialized countries of the world. Turkey's economy is no longer dominated by traditional agricultural activities in the rural areas, but more so by a highly dynamic industrial complex in the major cities, mostly concentrated in the western provinces of the country, along with a developed services sector. The agricultural sector accounts for 11.9% of GDP, whereas industrial and service sectors make up 23.7% and 64.5%, respectively. The tourism sector has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2005, there were 24,124,501 visitors to the country, who contributed 18.2 billion USD to Turkey's revenues. Other key sectors of the Turkish economy are construction, automotive industry, electronics and textiles.

At the end of 2005, the unemployment rate stood at 10.3%. With a per capita GDP of 4,710 USD, Turkey ranked 86th in the world for 2006. One of the biggest economic problems faced by Turkey is the distribution of wealth among the populace. In 2004, it has been estimated that the wealthiest 20% of the population owned 46.2% of the annual household disposible income while the poorest 20% had access to only 6%.

In recent years, the chronically high inflation has been brought under control and this has led to the launch of a new currency to cement the acquis of economic reforms and erase the vestiges of an unstable economy. On January 1, 2005, the Turkish Lira was replaced by the New Turkish Lira by dropping off six zeroes (1 NTL= 1,000,000 TL). As a result of continuing economic reforms, the inflation has climbed down to 8.2% in 2005.

Turkey's main trading partners are the European Union (52% of exports and 42% of imports as of 2005) United States, Russia and Japan. Turkey has taken advantage of a customs union with the European Union, signed in 1995, to increase its industrial production destined for exports, while at the same time benefiting from EU-origin foreign investment into the country. In 2005, exports amounted to 73.5 billion USD while the imports stood at 116.8 billion USD, with increases of 16,3% and 19,7% compared to 2004, respectively.

After years of low levels of foreign direct investment (FDI), Turkey succeeded in attracting 8.5 billion USD in FDI in 2005 and is expected to attract a higher figure in 2006. A series of large privatizations, the stability fostered by the start of Turkey’s EU accession negotiations, strong and stable growth, and structural changes in the banking, retail, and telecommunications sectors have all contributed to a rise in foreign investment.

Demographics

As of 2005, the population of Turkey stood at 72.6 million with a growth rate of 1.5% per annum. The Turkish population is relatively young with 25.5% falling within the 0-15 age bracket. According to statistics released by the government in 2005, life expectancy stands at 68.9 years for men and 73.8 years for women, for an overall average of 71.3 years for the populace as a whole.

Education is compulsory and free from ages 6 to 15. The literacy rate is 95.3% for men and 79.6% for women, for an overall average of 87.4%. This low figure is mainly due to prevailing feudal attitudes against women in the Arab and Kurdish inhabited southeastern provinces of the country.

Article 66 of the Turkish Constitution defines a "Turk" as anyone that is " bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship", therefore the legal use of the term "Turkish" (a citizen of Turkey) is different from the ethnic definition. However, the majority of the Turkish population are of Turkish ethnicity. Other major ethnic groups include the Kurds, Circassians, Roma, Arabs and the three official minorities (per the treaty of Lausanne) of Greeks, Armenians and Jews; the largest non-Turkic ethnicity being the Kurds, a distinct ethnic group traditionally concentrated in the southeast. While the term "minority" itself remains a sensitive issue in Turkey, it is to be noted that the degree of assimilation within various ethnic groups outside the recognized minorities is high, with the following generations generally adding into the melting-pot of the Turkish main body. Within that main body, certain distinctions based on diverse Turkic origins could be made as well. Reliable data on the exact ethnic repartition of the population is not available since the Turkish census figures do not include racial figures.

Due to a demand for an increased labour force in Post-World War II Europe, many Turkish citizens emigrated to Western Europe (particularly West Germany), contributing to the creation of a significant diaspora.

Turkish is the sole official language throughout Turkey. Reliable figures for the linguistic repartition of the populace are not available for reasons similar to those cited above. Nevertheless, the public broadcaster TRT broadcasts programmes in local languages and dialects of Arabic, Bosnian, Circassian and Kurdish a few hours a week.

Nominally, 99.8% of the Turkish population is Muslim, of whom a majority belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. About 15-20% of the population are affiliated with the Alevi sect. The remainder of the population belongs to other beliefs, particularly Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Syriac Orthodox), Judaism, Yezidism and Atheism.

There is a strong tradition of secularism in Turkey. Even though the state has no official religion nor promotes any, it actively monitors the area between the religions. The constitution recognises freedom of religion for individuals whereas the religious communities are placed under the protection of state, but the constitution explicitly states that they cannot become involved in the political process (by forming a religious party for instance) and no party can claim that it represents a form of religious belief. However, religious sensibilities are generally represented through conservative parties. Turkey prohibits by law the wearing of religious headcover and theo-political symbolic garments for both genders in government buildings, schools, and universities; a law upheld by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights as "legitimate" on November 10, 2005 in Leyla Şahin v. Turkey.

Culture

Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Central Asian Turkic, Ottoman, European as well as Islamic cultures and traditions; a mix that is a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West. As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, an increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into the fine arts, such as museums, theatres, and architecture.

Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining the Turkish identity, Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.

Turkish music and literature form great examples of such a mix of cultural influences. Many schools of music are popular throughout Turkey, from "arabesque" to hip-hop genres, as a result of the interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe, and thus contributing to a blend of Central Asian Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music. Turkish literature, which was influenced by Persian and Islamic influences during the Ottoman era, has been subsequently influenced by Western literary traditions and movements since the foundation of the republic; a trend that culminated in Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk being awarded, incidentally, the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature for having "discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures".

The most popular sport in Turkey by far is football, with certain matches drawing tens of millions of viewers on television. Nevertheless, other sports such as basketball and motor sports (following the inclusion of Istanbul Park on the Formula 1 racing calendar) have also become popular in recent times. The traditional Turkish national sport has been the Yağlı güreş (English: Oiled Wrestling) since the Ottoman times.

See also

Template:Topics in Turkey

Notes and references

1. Sabancı University (2005). "Geography of Turkey". Sabancı University. Retrieved 2006-12-13.
2. Mango, Andrew. 1999. Ataturk. John Murray p.xi
3. United Nations (2006-07-03). "Growth in United Nations membership (1945-2005)". United Nations. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
4. Organisation of the Islamic Conference (2006). "OIC Membership". OIC. Retrieved 206-10-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
5. OECD (2006). "OECD membership". OECD. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
6. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (2005). "OSCE Participating states". OSCE. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
7. Council of Europe (2006-10-27). "Turkey and the Council of Europe". Council of Europe. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
8. ^ NATO. "Greece and Turkey accede to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation". NATO. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
9. ^ Turkish Secretariat of European Union Affairs. "Chronology of Turkey-EU relations". Turkish Secretariat of European Union Affairs. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
10. American Heritage Dictionary (2000). "The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition - "Turk"". bartleby.com. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
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21. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/europe/04/cyprus/html/invasion.stm 1974 Invasion background (BBC)
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48. Ibid p.23
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