Turkey is a country straddling two continents, with a small part in southeastern Europe and the great bulk, the peninsula of Anatolia, in western Asia. This crossroads position, where Europe and Asia meet across the straits at Istanbul, has made it a meeting point of civilisations for thousands of years. Modern Turkey is a populous, strategically vital nation bridging the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and the Black Sea.
Anatolia is one of the oldest cradles of civilisation, home to Gobekli Tepe, perhaps the world's earliest monumental temple, and later to the Hittites and the city of Troy. It was Greek and Roman, then for a thousand years the heart of the Byzantine Empire, centred on Constantinople. Turkic peoples arrived from Central Asia, and in 1453 the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople, building an empire that spanned three continents before its collapse after the First World War.
Most of Turkey is the high, semi-arid Anatolian plateau, ringed by mountains and edged by fertile coasts on the Aegean, Mediterranean, and Black Seas. The land is geologically active and prone to powerful earthquakes. It holds remarkable landscapes, from the fairy-chimney rock formations of Cappadocia to Mount Ararat in the east. The straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, running through Istanbul, link the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and divide Europe from Asia.
The flag of Turkey is a red field bearing a white crescent moon and a five-pointed star. The crescent and star are long associated with Islam and with the Ottoman Empire, from which the modern flag is inherited. Bold and simple, the red banner is a powerful national symbol, and many stories, mostly legendary, have grown up to explain the origin of its crescent and star.
The great majority of Turks are Muslims, predominantly Sunni, and Islam has deep historical roots in the land. Yet modern Turkey was founded as a secular republic, in which the state and religion were formally separated as part of a sweeping programme of reform. The balance between this secular tradition and a more publicly religious politics has been one of the central tensions of the country's modern life. Istanbul remains dotted with both grand mosques and ancient churches.
Turkish cuisine is one of the world's great culinary traditions, drawing on Ottoman, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, and Central Asian roots. Grilled meats, the many forms of kebab, mezze platters of small dishes, stuffed vegetables, and rich pastries like baklava are all central. Bread accompanies nearly every meal, yogurt appears in countless dishes, and strong tea and thick Turkish coffee are woven into daily social life across the country.
Turkey is a major agricultural producer, largely self-sufficient in food, with farming spread across its varied regions. It is the world's leading producer of hazelnuts and a major grower of wheat, cotton, tea, figs, apricots, and many fruits and vegetables. The fertile coastal plains and river valleys are intensively cultivated, while the dry interior grows grain and raises livestock. Agriculture remains an important employer and a significant part of the export economy.
The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 is often taken to mark the end of the Middle Ages and reshaped the balance between Europe and the Islamic world. At its height the Ottoman Empire was among the most powerful states on Earth. After its defeat in the First World War, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk led a war of independence and in 1923 founded the modern Turkish Republic, transforming it into a secular, modernising nation-state.
Turkey has a population of around 85 million people, most of them ethnic Turks, with a large Kurdish minority concentrated in the southeast whose status has long been a sensitive issue. The population is young by European standards and increasingly urban. Istanbul, straddling Europe and Asia, is one of the largest cities in the world and the country's cultural and economic engine, while Ankara on the Anatolian plateau is the capital.
