Turkey
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Turkey is also a kind of bird. See Turkey (bird).
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye) is a country mostly in Asia, but with a smaller part in Europe. The area of modern Turkey is about 780,000 square kilometres. Its population is about 72 million. Turkey's official language is Turkish. A person from Turkey may be called a "Turk".
Turkey or Turkish Republic has 81 provinces. It is governed as a democracy with many parties. The Turkish currency is New Turkish Lira (Yeni Türk Lirası). Its abbreviation is YTL. (Aprox: $1 US is = 1.4 YTL)
The capital city is Ankara, a city in the central Anatolia plateau. The economic and industrial center is Istanbul, on the Bosphorus straits, and was in the past known as Constantinople.
Turkey was founded in 1923 by Atatürk as the Republic of Turkey after the war of independence. Before that, Turkish Republic was part of the Ottoman Empire. Ataturk introduced many changes that made Turkey more modern and western.
Because of its important location, throughout history the land has been the home of many civilisations, including the Hittites and the Byzantine Roman Empire. Many important events in the early history of Christianity took place in what is now the Turkish Republic.
Modern Turkey has a strong and varied economy. It has 7th largest army (4th largest ground army) in the world. Its warm climate lets many kinds of food crops grow, and livestock and forestry are important industries. Turkey is one of the country in the world that can make enough food to feed itself. There is a strong manufacturing sector making airplanes, electronics, cars, clothing and textiles for home and for other countries.
These days, Turkey is a popular place for tourists to visit. It has hundreds of kilometres of beautiful beaches on its Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, and many important historical sites.
[edit] Religion
99% of Turkey's population is Muslim. But not all of the people go to mosques for prayer. There are Jewish and Christian people living in Turkey also. Because of Turkey's constitution, the government doesn't have a religion, and everybody is equal in rights.
| Countries and territories of Europe |
|---|
| Albania - Andorra - Armenia - Austria - Azerbaijan1 - Belarus - Belgium - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Bulgaria - Croatia - Cyprus2 - Czech Republic - Denmark - Estonia - Finland - France - Germany - Georgia1 - Greece - Hungary - Iceland - Ireland - Italy - Latvia - Liechtenstein - Lithuania - Luxembourg - Malta - Moldova - Monaco - Montenegro - Netherlands - Norway - Poland - Portugal - Republic of Macedonia - Romania - Russia1 - San Marino - Serbia - Slovakia - Slovenia - Spain - Sweden - Switzerland - Turkey1 - Ukraine - United Kingdom - Vatican City |
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| Unrecognised countries: Abkhazia | Nagorno-Karabakh2 | South Ossetia | Transnistria | Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus2 |
| 1. Country partly in Asia. 2. Geographically in Asia, but often counted as part of Europe for cultural and historical reasons. |
| Countries and territories of Asia |
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| 1. Includes territory in both Europe and Asia. 2. Usually thought of Europe for cultural, Politically and historical reasons. 3. Special territories. |
