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Capital: Ankara. Area: 779,452 sq km (300,948 sq ml). Population: 62,526,000. Currency: 1 Lira = 100 Kurush. Religions: Muslim 99% Others 1%. Ethnic Groups: Turkish 85% Kurdish 10% Others 5%. Languages: Turkish & Kurdish. |
A country partly in Asia and
partly in Europe. The Asain and European parts of Turkey are separated by the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the channel of the Dardenelles. The smaller, European part is bounded by Bulgaria and Greece. The much larger Asain part comprises the whole of Asia minor and is known as Anatolia. It has the Black Sea on the north, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran on the east, Iraq and Syria on the south, and coasts on the Mediterranean and Aegean seas. Here the coastal plains are fertile, as are the valley's leading to them; but the plateau above is less so. Very warm in summer and cold in the winter, rugged and mountainous in the east, it is a place of forests and lakes, arid deserts and poor grazing for goats and sheep. Its largest river, the Kizil Irmak, is saline for nearly half its course to the Black Sea. In the east rise the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The plateau is subject to devastating earthquakes, however, lying as it does at a junction of crustal plates. |
[TOURISM IN TURKEY] |