Turkey, Turk. Türkiye (tür'kēyĕ'), officially Republic of Turkey, republic (2005 est. pop. 69,661,000), 301,380 sq mi (780,574 sq km), SW Asia and SE Europe. It borders on Iraq (SE), Syria and the Mediterranean Sea (S), the Aegean Sea (W), Greece and Bulgaria (NW), on the Black Sea (N), and Armenia, Georgia, and Iran (E). Ankara is the capital of the country and Istanbul is its largest city. Administratively, Turkey is divided into 80 provinces (iler).
Land and People
Asian Turkey (made up largely of Asia Minor), which includes 97% of the country, is separated from European Turkey (made up of E Thrace) by the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles (which together form a water link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). Northeast Asian Turkey includes part of historical Armenia, and SE Asian Turkey includes part of Kurdistan (see Kurds). European Turkey, which includes Edirne and most of Istanbul, is largely rolling agricultural land, drained by the Ergene River. Asian Turkey is mostly made up of highland and mountains, with some narrow strips of lowland in the west on the coasts of the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara and along the Simav, Gediz, and Menderes rivers; in the north on the Black Sea coast and along the Sakarya and Kizil Irmak rivers; and in the south on the Mediterranean coast and along the Aksu, Göksu, Seyhan, and Ceyhan rivers.
The center of W Asian Turkey is made up of the vast semiarid Plateau of Anatolia (average height c.3,000 ft/914 m), which includes lakes Tuz and Beyşehir and which is fringed in the north by the Köroğlu Mts. and in the south by the Taurus Mts. In NE Turkey are the Pontic Mts. and in E Turkey are the Eastern Taurus Mts. Great Ararat Mt. (16,945 ft/5,165 m), the highest point in Turkey, and Lake Van are in the extreme eastern part of the country. SE Turkey is drained by the upper courses of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Although the Turks regard the Osmanlis, or Ottomans, as their ancestors, they are a highly composite ethnic mixture. More than three fourths of the population is Turkish; Kurds make up most of the rest. The official language is Turkish, and Kurdish is widely used in the south and southeast; there is also an Arabic-speaking minority. About 99% of the people are Muslim, mostly of the Sunni branch; there is a significant Alawite minority. There are also small groups of Orthodox Christians (Istanbul is the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarch) and Jews. Turkey has universities in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Erzurum, and Trabzon, among other places.
Economy
Turkey's economy is a mixture of modern industry and traditional agriculture; great strides have been made since the 1970s to strengthen and diversify the economy. The most productive farmland is in W Turkey, but in recent years the country has instituted the massive Southeast Anatolia Project to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for irrigation and hydroelectric power. This project envisions the construction of 22 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants on the two rivers. In the late 1990s the giant Atatürk Dam and Reservoir on the upper Euphrates, as well as two other dams and adjacent power plants, had been completed, and six more were under construction. Although plagued by the conflict with Kurdish separatists and bitterly opposed by Syria and Iraq (who are concerned that the downstream water flow from the rivers to them will be severely impeded), the project is continuing. The government's goal is to transform arid SE Turkey into a prosperous agricultural-industrial region.
Turkey's chief crops are tobacco, cotton, wheat, barley, corn, rye, oats, rice, olives, figs, raisins, sugar beets, and fruit. Large numbers of sheep, goats (including many mohair-producing Angora goats), and cattle are raised.
The principal minerals extracted are coal, chromium, lignite, copper and iron ores, antimony, mercury, and boron. Some petroleum is produced. The leading industrial centers are Istanbul, Ankara, Karabük, Bursa, Izmir, Adana, Samsun, and Diyarbakir. The country's chief manufactures include textiles, clothing, processed food, iron and steel, petroleum, construction materials (especially cement), forest products, wine, and chemical fertilizer. Turkey is also noted for the manufacture of carpets, Meerschaum pipes and artifacts, and pottery. There is a substantial tourist trade.
Turkey's main ports are Istanbul, Izmir, Samsun, Iskenderun, Mersin, and Trabzon. Turkey has one of the Middle East's best road and rail systems, which includes the Baghdad Railway. The annual value of Turkey's imports is usually considerably higher than that of its exports. The chief imports are machinery, crude oil, metals, pharmaceuticals, plastics, rubber, and chemicals; the principal exports are textiles and clothing, iron and steel products, agricultural produce, and minerals. The leading trade partners are Germany, the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Turkey joined in a customs union with the European Union in 1995. Large numbers of Turks are employed in Western Europe, especially in Germany.
Government
History
Although Anatolia (the western portion of Asian Turkey) is one of the oldest inhabited regions of the world, the history of Turkey as a national state began only with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. For the earlier history of the region now constituting Turkey, see (for the ancient period) Asia Minor; Ionia; Pontus; Thrace; Byzantium; (for the medieval period) Byzantine Empire; Armenia; Turks; Konya; Karaman; Nicaea, empire of; Trebizond, empire of; (for the modern period before 1918) Ottoman Empire; Eastern Question.
The Establishment of Modern Turkey
The Ottoman Empire, which had been tottering since the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji in 1774, was dealt its death blow in World War I. By the Treaty of Sèvres (1920; see Sèvres, Treaty of) the victorious Allies reduced the once mighty empire to a small state comprising the northern half of the Anatolian peninsula and the narrow neutralized and Allied-occupied Zone of the Straits. Sultan Muhammad VI accepted the treaty, but Turkish nationalists rallied under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (from 1934 known as Kemal Atatürk) and organized their forces for resistance.
In Apr., 1920, even before the Treaty of Sèvres was signed, a Turkish national government and national assembly began to function at Ankara. The nationalists defied the authority of the sultan, took the offensive against the Allies in Anatolia, and concluded (1921) a treaty of friendship with the USSR, which restored the Kars and Ardahan regions to Turkey in exchange for Batumi. In the meantime the Greeks, encouraged by the Allies, launched an offensive against the nationalists from their base at Izmir. The Turkish counteroffensive, beginning in Aug., 1922, ended with the complete rout of the Greeks and with the Turkish capture of Izmir (Sept., 1922). On Nov. 1, 1922, the Ankara government declared the sultan deposed, but it allowed his brother, Abd al-Majid, to succeed to the spiritual office of caliph.
Shortly afterward, a conference opened at Lausanne (see Lausanne, Treaty of) to revise the Treaty of Sèvres. The Treaty of Lausanne (1923) established the present boundaries of Turkey, except for the disputed region of Alexandretta (Iskenderun; see Hatay). Turkey was to exercise full sovereign rights over its entire territory, except the Zone of the Straits (see Dardanelles), which was to remain demilitarized. Under a separate agreement negotiated at Lausanne in 1923, approximately 1.5 million Greeks living in Turkey were repatriated to Greece, and approximately 800,000 Turks living in Greece and Bulgaria were resettled in Turkey.
Kemal Atatürk and the Republic
Turkey was formally proclaimed a republic in Oct., 1923, with Kemal as its first president; he was reelected in 1927, 1931, and 1935. The caliphate was abolished in 1924, and in the same year a constitution was promulgated that provided for a parliament elected by universal manhood suffrage (extended to women in 1934), and for a cabinet responsible to parliament. However, Kemal governed as a virtual dictator, and his Republican People's party was the only legal party, except for brief periods. During the 14 years of Kemal's rule, Turkey underwent a great transformation, which changed the religious, social, and cultural bases of Turkish society as well as its political and economic structure.
In 1925, the government intensified its antireligious policy, abolished religious orders, forbade polygamy, and prohibited the wearing of the traditional fez. In 1926, Swiss, German, and Italian codes of law were adopted and civil marriage was made compulsory. In 1928, Islam ceased to be the state religion and the Latin alphabet was substituted for the Arabic script. In 1930, Constantinople, which had been replaced as capital by Ankara in 1923, was renamed Istanbul.
At the death (1938) of Kemal, Turkey was well on its way to becoming a state on the Western model. In the economic field, Kemal aimed at obtaining self-sufficiency for Turkey without the aid of foreign capital. Foreign investors had virtually taken over the finances of the Ottoman Empire, and one of the major problems of the Turkish republic was to pay off the old Ottoman debt; the refusal of foreign loans thus was a basic point in Kemal's nationalist program. The difficulties of establishing basic heavy industries without foreign investment and in the absence of much domestic capital required the government to assume a large role, and state ownership became the rule in the new industries.
In foreign policy, Turkey sought friendly relations with all its neighbors. It entered the League of Nations in 1932, guaranteed its European borders by joining (1934) with Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia in the Balkan Entente, and signed (1937) a treaty (the Saadabad Pact) with Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq. Although Communism was severely suppressed at home, relations with the USSR were cordial until World War II. Turkey was able to obtain a revision of the Straits Convention by the Montreux Convention of 1936 and gained a satisfactory solution of the Alexandretta dispute through an agreement with France in 1939.
