AREA: 779,452 sq km (300,948 sq miles).

POPULATION: 77,183,000 (2001 estimate).

POPULATION DENSITY: 78.5 per sq km.

CAPITAL: Ankara. Population: 3,200,000 (1991).

GEOGRAPHY: Turkey borders the Black Sea and Georgia and Armenia to the northeast, Iran to the east, Iraq to the southeast, Syria and the Mediterranean to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west and Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest. Asia Minor (or Anatolia) accounts for 970f the country and forms a long, wide peninsula 1650km (1025 miles) from east to west and 650km (400 miles) from north to south. Two east–west mountain ranges, the Black Sea Mountains in the north and the Taurus in the south, enclose the central Anatolian plateau, but converge in a vast mountainous region in the far east of the country. It is here that the ancient Tigris and Euphrates rivers rise.

LANGUAGE: Turkish. French, German and English are widely spoken in cities.

Religion: Muslim with a small Christian minority. Turkey is a secular state which guarantees complete freedom of worship to non-Muslims.

TIME: GMT + 2 (GMT + 3 from last Sunday in March to Saturday before last Sunday in September).

ELECTRICITY: 220 volts AC, 50Hz.

COMMUNICATIONS: Telephone: IDD is available. Country code: 90. Outgoing international code: 00. There is an extensive internal telephone network, but often an interpreter will be needed for more remote areas. Fax: All hotels and PTT offices have facilities. Telex/telegram: Telex and telegrams may be sent from all post offices. It is also possible to use the ‘Valuables Despatch Service’ for valuable belongings or important documents. Post: Airmail to Europe takes three days. Turkish post offices are recognisable by their yellow PTT signs. Major post offices are open 0800-2400 Monday to Saturday and 0900-1900 Sunday. Small post offices have the same opening hours as government offices.

History: Originally inhabited by a variety of different peoples – Hittites, Urartians, Phyrgians and Lydians – Turkey, or Asia Minor as it was called during much of the pre-modern period, was for over 1000 years the heartland of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, with Constantinople as its capital. Founded by Constantine the Great in AD330, it survived the collapse of the Western Empire in the 5th century. It was the capital from which the brilliant and enigmatic Emperor Justinian (527-565) launched his ambitious projects to reunite the old Roman Empire, the western provinces of which had been occupied by Germanic people from northern Europe. The Byzantine Empire, from the death of Justinian until its eventual fall in 1453, was engaged in a long retreat in the face of numerous enemies, mainly the forces of Islam. However, the Byzantines took advantage of the success of the First Crusade (1096-1100) whose armies re-took many Byzantine possessions in Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine although, as later events were to prove, the interests of the Byzantines and of the Christian Crusader states in Palestine were not always identical. The Byzantine state, however, never fully recovered, and on many occasions during the next three centuries a final defeat was only prevented by the disunity of its enemies and, particularly, by the massive fortifications of the city of Constantinople. The conquest of Constantinople in 1204 – the only time the fortifications were breached – was followed by one of the most savage and rapacious sacks of any city in the history of the world: the treasures of Byzantium were beyond count or value, and many priceless works of art were removed to Europe (mainly to Venice) during this time. The Byzantines set up a rival capital at Nicea until Constantinople was retaken in 1261, but by this time the empire had effectively lost control of most of its territories, and by the 14th century, Byzantine control of Asia Minor was little more than an empty theory. From the 11th century onwards, the Asiatic area of Turkey known as Anatolia had also been affected by upheavals and conquests from the east. Successive invasions from Central Asia led to the Islamic Turkification of the region, the real power fast becoming the Ottomans’, a name derived from their 14th-century leader Osman Gazi, who scored a decisive victory against the Byzantines at the Battle of Baphaeon in 1301. They steadily expanded their territorial control from Turkey itself, constructing the Ottoman Empire, which at its zenith in the mid-16th century (a period associated with the reign of Suleman the Magnificent) covered southeast Europe, including the Balkans and Hungary; north Africa as far as Morocco; Crimea and Georgia; the Levant; Syria; Iraq; and most of the Arabian peninsula. The most famous conquest, from a symbolic and strategic point of view, was that of Constantinople itself in 1453; with its fall, the Roman Empire, in a strictly legalistic sense, finally came to an end. The territorial ambitions of the Ottomans regarding control of the Mediterranean and Central Europe brought the empire into conflict with the major European powers of the day, particularly the Habsburgs. The Venetians, were almost constant enemies of the Ottomans during the late-17th and 18th centuries, during which time the empire sank into decline. Attempts were made by some rulers in the late-18th century to reform the empire, but with little effect. The diplomatic history of Central Europe in the early modern period is highly complex, and the Ottoman Empire became increasingly a pawn and victim of the various power struggles. Its disintegration, and the consequent forces of nationalism unleashed, caused schisms and conflicts that linger to this day throughout southern Europe and the Middle East. The Ottoman Dynasty was overthrown in 1923 by a revolutionary movement led by Mustafa Kemal – better known as Atatürk
(‘the father of the Turks’) – who established a single-party republic with himself at the head. The period after the War of Independence saw sweeping social reforms and economic modernisation, including the abolition of the Islamic social infrastructure and the development of manufacturing industry. Atatürk’s successor, Ismet Inönü, kept Turkey out of the Second World War (bar the last four months) and introduced multi-party politics. The first elections were held in 1950. There have since been two prolonged periods of military rule, the second ending with elections in 1983, won by Turgut Özal and the Motherland Party. Martial law, however, remained in force in many provinces until 1987. Turkey had joined NATO in 1952 and, following the lifting of suspensions with the end of military rule, is once more a member of the OECD and the Council of Europe, and an associate member of the EU; Turkish foreign policy also has concerns outside Europe. While its proximity to the ever-turbulent Middle East is equally important.  Turkey became deeply involved in the Gulf crisis set off by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. As Iraq’s only neighbour belonging to NATO, Turkey’s position has been a valuable one for the West. The True Path Party (DYP) led by Suleyman Demirel won 270f the vote; the Motherland Party (ANAP) led by Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz, 24; the Socialist Democratic Populist Party led by Erdal Inonu, 21; and the Islamic Welfare Party led by Necmettin Erbakan, 16True Path and the Socialist Democratic Populists formed a coalition which gave them a majority of 40 seats in the National Assembly. Suleyman Demirel, six times premier and twice deposed by the military, once again became Prime Minister. In June 1993, Demirel took over the presidency after the death of Turgut Özal. Elections for the leadership of the True Path Party brought to the helm the former economy minister, Tansu Ciller, who became Turkey’s first woman premier. Ciller led a minority government for the next two years. During this period the Islamic Welfare Party, known as Refah, made great political progress, winning several district and city mayoral elections and proving more administratively competent than its longer-established rivals. The election of December 1995 which followed the collapse of the Ciller government, assumed major international importance when Western governments began to worry about an Islamic-inspired government taking power in a strategically vital member of the Western alliance, even though Refah is not motivated by Iranian-style militancy. In an attempt to bolster Ciller’s position, the EU removed the block on the customs union. Nonetheless, Refah still secured the largest number of votes, although at 21, was far short of an overall majority. Ciller’s True Path and Mesut Yilmaz’s Motherland parties came close behind. The Social Democrats and People’s Republicans won 15and 11respectively. Erbakan made the first attempts to form a government but was unable to attract anyone into a coalition. An alliance between True Path and Motherland seemed natural given their lack of appreciable policy differences, the stumbling block being the intense personal animosity between Ciller and Mesut Yilmaz who repeatedly opined that Ciller should “go back to the kitchen”. Eventually agreement was reached between the two in February 1996 and a minority True Path-Motherland coalition now governs Turkey; the premiership will rotate between Yilmaz and Ciller. While the country was preoccupied with this political horse-trading, a territorial dispute with Greece flared up in the eastern Aegean Sea. At issue was the uninhabited island of Kardak (known to the Greeks as Imia). Bosnia-style crash diplomacy by the Americans averted what came dangerously close to armed conflict.

Government: Under the constitution of 1987, legislative power is vested in a single chamber, the 500-member National Assembly, elected through universal adult suffrage. The National Assembly elects both a prime minister and president between whom executive powers are shared.