Türkiye (Turkey)
Name
| Official name | Republic of Türkiye — Türkiye Cumhuriyeti in Turkish (the Latin alphabet of 1 November 1928; the dotted and dotless i's of the language), the name registered at the United Nations on 1 June 2022 at the government's request (the presidential circular of 4 December 2021 that asked the exporters, the ministries and the world to write "Türkiye" — the "Made in Türkiye" labels, the "Turkey" of the bird and the English dictionaries the stated reasons); "Turkey" in the English usage since Chaucer's century and in this page's brackets by owner order; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti the proclamation of 29 October 1923; the UN's founder member (24 October 1945; the San Francisco signatory), NATO's since 18 February 1952 (with Greece), the Council of Europe's since 13 April 1950, the OECD's founder of 1961, the OSCE's, the OIC's (1969), the G20's founder of 1999, the Organization of Turkic States' (2009), the EU's candidate since the Helsinki summit of December 1999 with the accession talks of 3 October 2005 frozen since 2018 by the Council's lines |
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| Former names | The Ottoman Empire (Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmaniyye, "the Sublime Ottoman State"; 1299–1922, the "Sublime Porte" of the diplomats, the "sick man of Europe" of the 19th-century tsar's phrase), Anatolia (Anadolu — from the Greek anatolē, "the sunrise", the east of the Byzantines), Asia Minor of the Romans, Rum (the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum of 1077–1308 — "the land of the Romans"), Turchia of the Italian merchants from the 12th century (the Turkish lands of the Seljuks; Turquía, Turquie, Turkey by the languages), Byzantium and Constantinople for the city of the Bosphorus (Istanbul the official name since the postal law of 28 March 1930 — from the Greek "eis tēn polin", "to the city"), the "Turkey in Asia" and "Turkey in Europe" of the old atlases, the Turkish State of the War of Independence (1920–23) under the Grand National Assembly before the republic |
| Demonym | Turkish (Türk; Türkler for the people) — "Türk" the name of the Göktürk inscriptions of the Orkhon valley of 732–35 (the oldest Turkic texts) and of the steppe confederations China's chronicles called Tujue, carried west by the Oghuz into Anatolia after 1071; the citizens of 86.09 million at home and the diaspora of about 6.5 million by the counts (Germany's 3.08 million of Turkish background the largest community, the Gastarbeiter agreement of 30 October 1961 its root; France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, the United States, Australia the next); "Turkish citizen" the constitution's civic definition (Article 66: "everyone bound to the Turkish state through the bond of citizenship is a Turk"), the Kurds, the Arabs, the Laz, the Circassians, the Armenians, the Greeks and the Jews of the republic among them — the state's "one nation" and the minorities' "the peoples of Türkiye" readings both stated (LAW 2) |
| Meaning of the name | "Türkiye" — "the land of the Turks": the ethnonym Türk (the Göktürk inscriptions' own name; "strong" or "the created" by the disputed etymologies) with the Arabic-Ottoman suffix -iye ("the place of"), the form the Ottomans themselves rarely used for their state (Memalik-i Osmaniye, "the Ottoman realms") and the republic took over from the Europeans' Turchia/Turquie in 1923; "Turkey" in English from the Medieval Latin Turchia (the 14th century), the bird named in the 16th century for the Turkish merchants who sold the guinea fowl in England and then for the American bird mistaken for it; "Anatolia" the sunrise land of the Greeks, "Asia" itself a name first given to the Lydian coast of the Aegean by the Greeks before it took the continent; "Istanbul" from the Greek "to the city", "Ankara" from the Phrygian-Galatian Ankyra ("the anchor" by the folk reading); the state's 2021–22 campaign to replace "Turkey" with "Türkiye" in the world's usage the name's newest chapter |
| Motto | None by law — "Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" ("Peace at home, peace in the world"; Atatürk's maxim of 20 April 1931) the foreign policy's motto carved over the state's self-description, "Egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir" ("Sovereignty unconditionally belongs to the nation") the words over the Speaker's chair of the Grand National Assembly (the 1921 constitution's Article 1), "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene" ("How happy is the one who says 'I am a Turk'"; Atatürk's address of 29 October 1933) the schools' and the hillsides' line, the AKP's "Türkiye Yüzyılı" ("the Century of Türkiye") of 28 October 2022 the governing slogan of the centenary; the anthem's "Korkma!" ("Fear not!") the first word every pupil knows |
Quick facts
| Capital | Ankara — the capital by the Assembly's law of 13 October 1923 (Istanbul the Ottoman capital of 1453–1922; the War of Independence's seat since 27 December 1919), on the plateau at 938 m by the Ankara stream, 5,910,320 people in the province (31 December 2025; the second city), the Presidential Complex of Beştepe (29 October 2014; the 1,150 rooms of the critics' counts), the Grand National Assembly on Atatürk Boulevard (the 1961 building), the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation, the Council of State, the general staff and the ministries, Anıtkabir (1953), the Atatürk Forest Farm, the Kocatepe mosque (1987), the Ankara Castle and the Temple of Augustus of the Galatian Ankyra, the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (the Hittite and Phrygian halls), the universities of Ankara (1946), Hacettepe, METU (1956) and Bilkent; the Esenboğa airport (1955), the Ankaray and the metro, the YHT trains to Istanbul (2014), Konya (2011) and Sivas (2023); the Angora cat, goat and rabbit of the old name |
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| Largest cities | Istanbul (15,754,053 in the province at the count of 31 December 2025 — the largest city of Europe by the usual line, 18.3% of the country; the 39 districts of the two shores; the Fatih, Beyoğlu, Üsküdar and Kadıköy of the old city and the Esenyurt, Bağcılar and Pendik of the belts), Ankara (5,910,320), İzmir (4,504,185; the Aegean's Smyrna, the port and the fair), Bursa (3,263,011; the Ottomans' first capital, the automotive city), Antalya (2,777,677; the tourist coast), Konya (2,343,409; the Seljuk capital, Rumi's tomb), Adana, Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep, Kocaeli, Mersin, Diyarbakır, Hatay, Manisa and Kayseri the provinces above 1.4 million by the count; the 30 metropolitan municipalities of the 2012 law that made every province above 750,000 one city; the smallest provinces Bayburt (about 85,000) and Tunceli |
| Official language | Turkish — the constitution's Article 3 ("its language is Turkish"), the Latin alphabet of 1 November 1928 (the 29 letters with ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, ü; the Arabic script of the Ottomans ended), the Türk Dil Kurumu of 1932 that purged the Persian and Arabic words, the Istanbul Turkish of the broadcasters; Kurdish (Kurmanji) the mother tongue of about 12–15% by the estimates (Zazaki beside it; the private courses of 2003, TRT Kurdî of 2009, the elective lessons of 2012 — the public ban of 1983–91 the memory), Arabic (Hatay, Mardin, Şanlıurfa; the Syrians since 2011), the Lausanne minorities' Greek, Armenian and Ladino/Hebrew with their schools, Laz, Georgian, Circassian, Bosnian and Albanian of the Caucasus and Balkan migrations, Romani; English the schools' foreign language, German the diaspora's second tongue; the 2024 count of 973 districts' "Turkish only" state usage — the DEM's "mother-tongue education" demand and the state's "one official language" both stated (LAW 2) |
| Currency | Turkish lira (ISO code TRY; the ₺ symbol of 2012; TL), of 100 kuruş — about 49 to the U.S. dollar (the Central Bank's indicative 48.97/49.06 of 2 October 2026; 41.6 a year earlier) and about 55 to the euro (55.08/55.18), about 2 Indian rupees to the lira (0.51 lira to the rupee by the cross rates of 2 October); the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (1930; Governor Fatih Karahan since 3 February 2024), the policy rate 37% since 23 January 2026 held through the 10 September meeting (the next 22 October); the inflation 31.51% (August 2026); the redenomination of 1 January 2005 (six zeros off: the 1,000,000 old lira of the 2001 crisis became one new lira), the "new" dropped in 2009; the notes of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 lira (Atatürk on the face; Aydın Sayılı, Mimar Kemaleddin, Fatma Aliye, Cahit Arf, Buhurizade Itri and Yunus Emre on the backs of the 2009 series), the coins of 1 kuruş to 1 lira; the lira's fall from 1.5 to the dollar in 2010 to 49 in 2026 the economy's defining line |
| Time zone | UTC+3 the year round ("Turkey Time", TRT) — the decree of 8 September 2016 that kept the summer time permanently (the daylight saving of 1985–2016 ended; the winter mornings' darkness in the west the grumble, the 2018 confirmation after the lawsuits); two hours ahead of Central Europe in winter and one in summer, the same clock as Moscow, Riyadh and Baghdad, half an hour behind Tehran, two and a half hours behind India; the 24-hour clock of the timetables; the week of Monday to Friday with the Friday prayer's hour; the dates in day.month.year (04.10.2026) |
| Calling code, internet and ISO codes | +90 (the ten-digit numbers after the 0 trunk; Turkcell, Türk Telekom and Vodafone the three networks — the 5G of 1 April 2026 after the auction of 16 October 2025 at US$2.95 billion before VAT, the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz licenses to 2042), internet .tr (the TRABİS registry of 2022 after METU's 32 years; the "com.tr" of the firms), about 88% of the people online by the counts (the Instagram, WhatsApp and X of the daily life; the throttling of the platforms on the days of crisis — the state's "security" and the rights groups' "censorship" both stated, LAW 2); ISO 3166 TR, TUR, 792; the vehicle code TR (the plates of the 81 provinces' numbers — 34 Istanbul, 06 Ankara, 35 İzmir); the IOC and FIFA code TUR; the aircraft registration TC-; the Type F plugs at 230 V and 50 Hz; the metric system since 1931 (the kilometer, the kilogram, the liter; the dönüm of the fields in the villages' speech) |
| Area | 783,562 km² (302,535 sq mi) by the common count (783,356 by another; 769,604 km² of land and 13,930 of water by TÜİK's division) — the 36th country of the world by area, the first of the Middle East's by the Mediterranean line and the second of Europe's if counted there after Russia and ahead of Ukraine; 97% in Asia (Anatolia, 755,000 km²) and 3% in Europe (East Thrace, 23,000 km² west of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles); about a quarter of India's area, 2.3 times Rajasthan's, 528 times Delhi's, 3.2 times the United Kingdom's, 1.1 times Texas's; the 1,650 km from Edirne in the west to the Iranian line and the 650 km from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean; the land borders of eight neighbors (2,648 km by one count, 2,949 by another — both stated) and the coast of about 7,200 km on the Black Sea, the Marmara, the Aegean and the Mediterranean; the elevation's mean about 1,100 m — a country of plateaus and ranges |
| Population | 86,092,168 by the address-based count of 31 December 2025 (TÜİK, 9 February 2026; the 427,224 added in the year — the growth of 5.0 per thousand after 2024's 3.4) — 85,664,944 at the end of 2024, 84,680,273 at the end of 2021, 73.7 million at the 2010 count, 67.8 million at the 2000 census, 44.7 million in 1980, 20.9 million in 1950, 13.6 million at the republic's first census of 1927; the 18th most populous country by the UN's lists, the second of Europe's if counted there after Russia; the men 50.02% and the women 49.98%; the live births 895,374 of 2025 (the crude rate 10.4 per thousand against 20.3 in 2001) and the deaths 491,684; the foreign residents 1,519,515 at the end of 2025 (outside the count: the 2,264,983 Syrians under temporary protection of 25 June 2026 by the Interior Ministry's count); the 2025 count's 86.09 million against the UN's 87.7 million estimate — both stated |
| Density | About 110 people per km² on the 783,562 km² and 112 by TÜİK's count on the land area — both stated; Istanbul's 2,943 per km² the crowded pole (15.75 million on 5,461 km²), the Marmara region's 350-odd, the Aegean coast's and the Mediterranean's 100–150, Central Anatolia's 50–60 outside Ankara, the east's 40 and Tunceli's 11 the empty end (the Kurdish southeast's Şanlıurfa and Diyarbakır at 110–120 with the high births); 93.6% in the province and district centers by the 2025 count (the 2012 metropolitan law counted the villages of 30 provinces as neighborhoods), 6.4% in the towns and villages; the coasts and the Marmara belt that hold half the people on a fifth of the land, the plateau's wheat country and the eastern mountains the rest |
| Religion | Islam the religion of about 99% of the people by the identity cards' line (the state's count until the field was emptied in 2017) — Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school the majority, the Alevis about 10–20% by the estimates (the cemevi question; the Alevi-Bektashi presidency of 2022), the Shafi'i Kurds of the southeast, the Jafari Azeris of Iğdır and Kars; the Diyanet (the Presidency of Religious Affairs of 1924; about 90,000 mosques, the Friday sermons, the imams' salaries), the laicism of Article 2 (the 1937 amendment; the headscarf's ban in the public offices lifted in 2013 and in the schools in 2014); the Christians about 0.2–0.4% by the counts — the Greek Orthodox of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Bartholomew I since 1991; about 2,000 Greeks of Istanbul left of the 100,000 of 1955), the Armenian Apostolic (about 60,000; the Patriarchate), the Syriacs of Mardin and Istanbul, the Catholics, the Protestants; the Jews about 14,000 (the Sephardim of 1492; the Neve Shalom synagogue); the irreligious and the deists about 3–10% by the surveys (KONDA's 2018 "no belief" of 3%); the Pope's visit of 27–30 November 2025 for Nicaea's 1,700th year |
| Government type | Unitary presidential republic under the constitution of 7 November 1982 (the referendum of the coup years: 91.37% yes) as amended repeatedly (the referendums of 2010 and 2017 the largest) — the referendum of 16 April 2017 (51.4% yes) that replaced the parliamentary system with the executive presidency in force since the election of 24 June 2018 (the prime minister's office abolished on 9 July 2018; the President names and dismisses the ministers and the vice presidents, issues the presidential decrees, chairs the National Security Council; the Assembly of 600 legislates and holds the budget; the two-term limit with the "renewal of elections" exception of Article 116 — the 360 votes of the Assembly that would open a third candidacy, the adviser Uçum's proposal of 16 April 2028 as the date; the AKP–MHP's 326 seats by the count of September 2026); the state's "the strong executive the nation chose" and the opposition's "one-man rule" readings both stated (LAW 2); the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), the Council of State (Danıştay); the 81 provinces under appointed governors, the elected mayors and councils (the 2024 local elections) and the trustees (kayyum) of the removed mayors; the vote at 18; the capital Ankara |
| Head of state | President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — born 26 February 1954 at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul (the ship captain's son, the imam-hatip school, the Marmara University's economics, the semi-professional footballer of Kasımpaşa), the Welfare Party's mayor of Istanbul of 27 March 1994 – 6 November 1998 (jailed four months in 1999 for a poem), the AKP's founder of 14 August 2001, the Prime Minister of 14 March 2003 – 28 August 2014 after the Siirt by-election, the President since 28 August 2014 (the first elected by the people: 51.79%), re-elected on 24 June 2018 (52.59%) and 28 May 2023 (52.18% in the first runoff of the republic over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's 47.82%; the first round of 14 May 49.52%), sworn in on 3 June 2023 for the term to 2028 — the longest-serving leader of the republic (23 years at the top by October 2026, Atatürk's 15 and İnönü's 12 behind him); the head of state and of the executive, the commander-in-chief, the chair of the National Security Council, the AKP's chairman again since 2017; the UN General Assembly's speech of 22 September 2026 ("abolish the veto"), the NATO summit of Ankara of 7–8 July 2026 the host, the White House of 25 September 2025 the guest; the Republic Day of 29 October and the Beştepe palace; the question of 2028 (the renewal vote of 360, the "re-elect our President" line of Justice Minister Gürlek of September 2026 and the opposition's "the constitution's two terms") both stated (LAW 2) |
| Head of government | The President — the office of prime minister abolished on 9 July 2018 by the 2017 amendments (Binali Yıldırım the 27th and last, 24 May 2016 – 9 July 2018; the office of 1920–2018 held by İnönü, Menderes, Demirel, Ecevit, Özal, Çiller, Erbakan, Erdoğan and Davutoğlu among the names); Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz (since 4 June 2023; the economist of the AKP's development ministries, the Medium-Term Program's presenter of 6 September 2026, the budget's of 16 October 2025, the chair of the PKK process's board since August 2026, the envoy to Yerevan of 4 May 2026); the cabinet of 17 ministers appointed by the President — Hakan Fidan (Foreign, since 2023; the MİT chief of 2010–23), Mehmet Şimşek (Treasury and Finance, since 3 June 2023 — the "rational ground" program), Yaşar Güler (Defense), Mustafa Çiftçi (Interior) and Akın Gürlek (Justice) since the reshuffle of 11 February 2026 (Ali Yerlikaya and Yılmaz Tunç out; the brawl in the Assembly over Gürlek, the Istanbul chief prosecutor of the İmamoğlu case), Alparslan Bayraktar (Energy), Abdulkadir Uraloğlu (Transport), Ömer Bolat (Trade), Yusuf Tekin (Education), Kemal Memişoğlu (Health), Murat Kurum (Environment and Urbanization; the COP31 president), Mehmet Nuri Ersoy (Culture and Tourism), Mehmet Fatih Kacır (Industry), İbrahim Yumaklı (Agriculture), Vedat Işıkhan (Labor), Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş (Family), Osman Aşkın Bak (Youth and Sports); the presidential decrees and the ministers without the Assembly's confirmation the 2018 system's mark |
| Legislature | The Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM; 23 April 1920) of 600 deputies (550 until 2018) elected for five years by the D'Hondt lists of 87 districts with the 7% national threshold (10% until 2022) — the 28th Assembly elected on 14 May 2023 (the AKP 268, the CHP 169, the Greens-Left/DEM 61, the MHP 50, the İYİ 43, the YRP 5, the TİP 4 by the lists; turnout 87%) and recomposed by the splits: by the count of 14 August 2026 the AKP 280, the Yeni Parti 91 (Özgür Özel's party of 24 July 2026 — the main opposition), the DEM 56, the MHP 46, the CHP 44, the İYİ 27, the Yeni Yol group of Saadet and DEVA 20, the independents 10, the Yeniden Refah 4, the HÜDA PAR 4, the TİP 3, the DBP 2, the EMEP 2, Saadet 1, the DSP 1, the DP 1, eight seats vacant; Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş (since 7 June 2023); the legislative year opened on 1 October 2026 with the Yeni Parti's walkout as the President entered; the PKK process's law passed 467–87 on 10 August 2026; the budget of the Plan and Budget Committee each December; the women 20% of the deputies; the Assembly's 1961 building on Atatürk Boulevard (the bombed hall of 15 July 2016 kept as it was); the next election due by May 2028 |
| National Day | 29 October — Republic Day (Cumhuriyet Bayramı; the proclamation of 1923, the centenary of 2023); the other national days — 23 April (National Sovereignty and Children's Day; the Assembly's opening of 1920 — the children in the Speaker's chair), 19 May (the Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day; the Samsun landing of 1919), 30 August (Victory Day; Dumlupınar 1922), 15 July (the Democracy and National Unity Day of the 2016 coup attempt's defeat — the 253 dead), 10 November (Atatürk's death at 9:05 in 1938 — the sirens and the minute of silence), 18 March (the Çanakkale victory of 1915 and the martyrs); the religious holidays of Ramazan Bayramı (three and a half days) and Kurban Bayramı (four and a half) on the lunar calendar; 1 May (Labor Day since 2009; the Taksim question), 1 January; the flag on every balcony on the bayrams |
| Driving side and HDI | Right (the European rule; the Tofaş and Renault of the old roads, the Togg of 2023 the national car, the 32 million vehicles by the counts); Human Development Index 0.853 (2023), 45th of 193, "very high" by the UNDP's 2025 report; Gini 0.410 (2025 by TÜİK; 0.413 in 2024) — the top fifth's 48% of the income; the at-risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion share 27.9% of the people and 36.8% of the children (2025); life expectancy 78.5 years (2023–25; 81.1 for women, 75.9 for men); the minimum wage ₺28,075 net (2026) against the Türk-İş hunger line of ₺37,801 (September 2026) — both stated; the unemployment 7.8% (August 2026) and the broad underutilization about 30% — both stated; the median age 34.9; the Press Freedom Index of RSF 159th of 180 (2025) — the state's "the freest press of the region" and the rank's reading both stated (LAW 2) |
Flag & national symbols
| National flag | The flag of the Ottoman state of 1844 kept by the republic — a red field with a white crescent and a white five-pointed star set left of center, the proportion 2:3 fixed by the Turkish Flag Law No. 2994 of 29 May 1936 and the law No. 2893 of 22 September 1983 with its regulation of 1985 (the crescent's outer diameter half the hoist, the star's circle a quarter — the geometry the law prints); the "ay yıldız" ("moon-star") of the Ottoman banners since the 18th century (the crescent of Byzantium's Constantinople and of the Turkic sky, the star added under Selim III and fixed under Abdülmecid in 1844 — the Tanzimat's flag), the red of the martyrs' blood in the national reading (the Kosovo field of 1389's legend of the moon and the star in the blood), the flag the Ottomans flew at Gallipoli and the Assembly raised at Ankara; the same flag as the late Ottoman Empire's — among the older national flags in use (the 1844 design); Northern Cyprus's mirror flag of 1984 and Azerbaijan's cousin; the desecration a crime of the penal code's Article 300; the "Türk bayrağı" of the balconies on every bayram and of the 15 July nightsFlag of Türkiye (Turkey) |
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| Coat of arms | None by law — the republic never adopted a coat of arms (the competition of 1925 and 1927 for a state emblem produced Namık İsmail's wolf-and-star design that was never enacted); the white crescent and star of the flag the state's emblem on the passports, the ministries' seals, the coins and the Presidency's emblem (the 16 stars of the Presidential seal of 1985 for the 16 "great Turkic states" of the official history around the central sun); the Grand National Assembly's emblem, the Diyanet's, the Turkish Airlines' wild goose; the Ottoman coat of arms of 1882 (the tughra, the weapons and the flags of Abdülhamid II) the memory of the museums; the gray wolf (bozkurt) of the Ergenekon legend the nationalists' emblem (the MHP's gesture), the tulip and the tughra on the municipal arms |
| National anthem | "İstiklal Marşı" ("The Independence March") — the ten stanzas by Mehmet Akif Ersoy adopted by the Grand National Assembly on 12 March 1921 at the War of Independence's darkest hour (the 724 poems of the competition, the prize refused by the poet), the melody by Osman Zeki Üngör chosen in 1930 (the orchestration of Edgar Manas); only the first two stanzas sung ("Korkma, sönmez bu şafaklarda yüzen al sancak" — "Fear not, the crimson banner that waves in these dawns shall not fade"); the anthem of Northern Cyprus too; the school mornings' and the stadium's hymn, the 15 July squares' chorus; the Flag Law's rule of standing |
| National motto | None by law — "Yurtta sulh, cihanda sulh" ("Peace at home, peace in the world"; Atatürk, 20 April 1931) the maxim of the foreign ministry's walls and the constitution's preamble, "Egemenlik kayıtsız şartsız milletindir" over the Assembly's rostrum, "Ne mutlu Türküm diyene" on the hillsides of the garrisons (removed from the pupils' oath in 2013), "Hakimiyet milletindir", "Vatan sağolsun" ("long live the homeland") of the funerals, "Türkiye Yüzyılı" of the AKP's centenary program, "Ya istiklal ya ölüm" ("independence or death") of 1920; the Ottoman "Devlet-i ebed-müddet" ("the eternal state") the nationalists' old line |
| National colors | Red and white of the flag — the national teams in red at home (the "Ay-Yıldızlılar", the Crescent-Stars, of the football), the white away kit, the Olympic team's red and white; the red of the Ottoman banners and of the Turkish flag's crimson by the law's exact shade, the white of the crescent; the turquoise ("Turkish blue") of the İznik tiles and the Mediterranean's name for the coast, the green of the Ottoman religious banners (Prophet's standard) and of the Islamist parties, the blue of the evil-eye bead; the gray of the wolf, the gold of the tughra; the national flower's tulip red and yellow |
| National animal | None by law — the gray wolf (bozkurt) of the Turkic creation legends (Asena the she-wolf of the Göktürks, the Ergenekon valley's guide) the nationalists' emblem, the Turkish Angora cat and the Van cat of the odd eyes the famous breeds (the Ankara zoo's Angora program; the Van cat house of 1992), the Kangal shepherd dog of Sivas (the mastiff of the flocks; the breed law's protection), the Akbaş, the Anatolian leopard of the camera traps (the few of the Taurus and the east; the one shot in 2013 at Diyarbakır), the brown bear, the striped hyena, the Eurasian lynx, the loggerhead turtles of İztuzu and Belek, the Anatolian wild sheep; the bald ibis of Birecik (the semi-wild colony of 300); the Mediterranean monk seal of the Foça coast; the stray cats of Istanbul ("Kedi" of 2016) the city's unofficial emblem and the stray dogs the 2024 law's subject (the state's "shelters" and the critics' "cull" both stated, LAW 2) |
| National flower and tree | The tulip (lale) by custom — the Ottoman flower of the 16th-century gardens that Busbecq carried to Vienna and the Dutch ("tulip" from tülbend, the turban), the Tulip Era of 1718–30 (Ahmed III's festivals, the Patrona Halil revolt that ended it), the Istanbul Tulip Festival of April since 2006 (the 30 million bulbs of the municipality), the Turkish Airlines logo's tulip of 2010–; the rose of Isparta (the attar of the world's 50–60% by the claim), the carnation of the pehlivans, the hazelnut of the Black Sea and the olive of the Aegean the trees of the economy (the 190 million olive trees), the Anatolian pine and the cedar of the Taurus (the Lebanon cedar's largest stands), the plane trees of the squares (Bursa's İnkaya plane of 600 years), the oak of the Thracian forests, the Turkish hazel; no official tree by law |
| National dish | None by law — the kebabs of every region (the Adana and Urfa, the döner that the world took, the İskender of Bursa, the cağ of Erzurum, the testi of Cappadocia), the köfte, the lahmacun and the pide, the mantı of Kayseri, the dolma and the sarma, the meze of the rakı table (the "lion's milk" of the nickname), the fish of the Bosphorus (the hamsi of the Black Sea), the baklava of Gaziantep (the EU's geographical indication of 2013), the lokum (Turkish delight of Hacı Bekir, 1777), the simit of the street, the menemen of the breakfast (the kahvaltı of a hundred plates), the ayran, the Turkish coffee (UNESCO ICH 2013) and the çay in the tulip glass (ICH 2022 — the world's first tea drinkers per head by the counts, about 3.5 kg a year), the künefe of Hatay, the Maraş ice cream, the keşkek (ICH 2011), the mesir paste of Manisa (ICH 2012); the Anatolian breakfast and the çay the nation's two rituals |
| National sport | Oil wrestling (yağlı güreş) the "ancestral sport" (ata sporu) by the state's line — the Kırkpınar of Edirne since the 14th century by the tradition (1346 or 1361 by the tellings) (the 665th of 5 July 2026: Erkan Taş the başpehlivan over Feyzullah Aktürk; the golden belt, the olive-oiled kispet; UNESCO ICH 2010); football the mass game — the Süper Lig of 1959 (Galatasaray's record 26th title of 9 May 2026, the fourth in a row; Fenerbahçe 19, Beşiktaş 16, Trabzonspor 7), the Turkish Cup (Trabzonspor's 10th of 22 May 2026), Galatasaray's UEFA Cup of 2000 (the only European trophy), the Ay-Yıldızlılar's third place at the 2002 World Cup and the semifinal of Euro 2008, the quarterfinals of Euro 2024 (the Netherlands 2–1 at Berlin), THE 2026 WORLD CUP reached on 31 March 2026 at Pristina (Kosovo 0–1, Kerem Aktürkoğlu 53′ — the first since 2002) and left in Group D (Australia 2–0 at Vancouver on 14 June, Paraguay 1–0 at Santa Clara on 20 June, the 3–2 over the United States at Inglewood on 25 June by Arda Güler's and Kaan Ayhan's goals); Vincenzo Montella the coach under the autumn's pressure (the Nations League's three defeats to 2 October 2026); basketball's EuroBasket silver of 14 September 2025 (Germany 88–83; Alperen Şengün), Fenerbahçe's EuroLeague of 2025; the women's volleyball "Sultans of the Net" — the European titles of 2023 and 6 September 2026 (Italy 3–2 at Istanbul), the Nations League of 26 July 2026, the world silver of 2025 (Melissa Vargas); the wrestling and weightlifting of the Olympic medals (Süleymanoğlu, Mutlu, Akgül); the Olympics 103 medals by Olympedia's count and 111 by the other list's — both stated |
| Heritage listings | Twenty-two World Heritage properties by UNESCO's list of 2026 (20 cultural, 2 mixed; no 2026 addition at Busan — Istanbul hosts the 49th session of 27 June – 7 July 2027): Göreme and the rock sites of Cappadocia and the Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği (1985), the historic areas of Istanbul (1985), Hattusha (1986), Nemrut Dağ (1987), Hierapolis-Pamukkale and Xanthos-Letoon (1988), Safranbolu (1994), Troy (1998), the Selimiye mosque of Edirne (2011), Çatalhöyük (2012), Bursa and Cumalıkızık and Pergamon (2014), Diyarbakır's walls and the Hevsel gardens and Ephesus (2015), Ani (2016), Aphrodisias (2017), Göbekli Tepe (2018), Arslantepe (2021), Gordion and the wooden hypostyle mosques of medieval Anatolia (2023), Sardis and the Lydian tumuli of Bin Tepe (2025); the tentative list of 80 the world's longest; the intangible heritage 32 elements (the second in the world after China) — the Meddah and the Mevlevi Sema (2008), Karagöz and the âşık tradition (2009), Kırkpınar, the Semah and the Sohbet (2010), the keşkek (2011), the mesir paste (2012), the Turkish coffee (2013), the ebru (2014), the çini (2016), Hıdrellez (2017), the çay culture (2022), the Antep işi embroidery (December 2025); the 54 national parks, the 14 Ramsar sites, the Kula-Salihli geopark (2013), the Camili biosphere reserve (2005), the 580 Blue Flag beaches of 2026 (the third in the world) |
| Symbol status | The flag by the Turkish Flag Law No. 2893 of 22 September 1983 (the law No. 2994 of 1936 before it) with its regulation of 1985 — the dimensions, the shade, the rules of raising and the half-mast of 10 November; the anthem by the Assembly's vote of 12 March 1921 (the melody of 1930); the constitution's Article 3 ("the state's flag, the form of which is prescribed by the relevant law, is composed of a white crescent and star on a red background; the national anthem is the Independence March; the capital is Ankara") among the unamendable articles with Article 1 (the republic) and Article 2 (the democratic, secular and social state of law); the penal code's Article 300 on the flag's and the anthem's desecration and Article 301 on "denigrating the Turkish nation"; the law No. 5816 of 1951 protecting Atatürk's memory; no coat of arms, animal, flower, tree, dish or motto by law — the tulip, the gray wolf, the çay and the kebab by custom |
Geography
| Location | The bridge of Europe and Asia between 36° and 42° N and 26° and 45° E — Anatolia (Asia Minor, 97% of the area) and East Thrace (3%) joined across the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles (the Turkish Straits of the Montreux Convention of 1936), the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean to the west, the Mediterranean to the south; the land borders of eight neighbors — Greece and Bulgaria in Thrace, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan (the 9–18 km of the Dilucu gate), Iran, Iraq and Syria in the east and south (2,648 km in all by one count, 2,949 by another — both stated; Syria's the longest at 822–911 km); Cyprus 70 km off the southern coast, the Greek islands a few kilometers off the Aegean shore (Kastellorizo 2 km from Kaş, Chios 7 km from Çeşme, Samos 1.6 km from the Mycale cape), Russia and Ukraine across the Black Sea; the 1,650 km from Edirne to the Iranian line, the 650 km from Sinop to the Mediterranean; the North Anatolian Fault across the whole north, the plateau at 1,000 m, the Pontic and Taurus ranges along the two coasts, the Armenian highland of the east; Istanbul at 41° N on the latitude of Naples and New York, Antalya on Tokyo's |
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| Regions | The seven geographic regions of the 1941 Geography Congress — Marmara (Istanbul, Bursa, Edirne; the industry and a third of the people), the Aegean (İzmir, Manisa, Denizli; the olives, the figs, the ruins of Ionia), the Mediterranean (Antalya, Adana, Mersin, Hatay; the tourist coast and the Çukurova cotton), Central Anatolia (Ankara, Konya, Kayseri; the wheat steppe, the Tuz lake, Cappadocia), the Black Sea (Samsun, Trabzon, Rize; the hazelnuts, the tea, the rain), Eastern Anatolia (Erzurum, Van, Ağrı; the highland of the winters, Ararat, Lake Van) and Southeastern Anatolia (Gaziantep, Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa; the GAP's dams, the Mesopotamian edge, the Kurdish towns) — the 81 provinces (il) under the governors appointed by the President (the 67 of 1957 grown to 81 by 1999 — Düzce the last), the 973 districts (ilçe) of TÜİK's 2025 count, the 30 metropolitan municipalities of the 2012 law (every province above 750,000: Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Adana, Konya, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Kocaeli, Mersin, Diyarbakır, Hatay, Manisa, Kayseri, Samsun, Balıkesir, Kahramanmaraş, Van, Aydın, Tekirdağ, Sakarya, Denizli, Muğla, Eskişehir, Mardin, Malatya, Erzurum, Trabzon, Ordu), the 12 statistical regions (NUTS 1) of the EU convention; the license-plate numbers in the alphabetical order of 1956 (01 Adana to 81 Düzce) |
| Highest point | Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı) — 5,137 m (16,854 ft), the dormant stratovolcano of the eastern corner 16 km from the Iranian line and 32 km from the Armenian (the Ark's mountain of the Genesis tradition and the Armenian national symbol across the border; the eruption and earthquake of 2 July 1840 that buried the Ahora village; the first recorded ascent by Friedrich Parrot and Khachatur Abovian of 9 October 1829; the permit climbs of the summer from Doğubayazıt), Little Ararat 3,896 m at its side; the other summits — the Cilo-Sat's Uludoruk 4,135 m (Hakkari; the glaciers of the Zagros's Turkish end), Süphan 4,058 m over Lake Van, the Kaçkar 3,937 m of the Black Sea range (the tea country's wall), Erciyes 3,917 m over Kayseri (the ski runs), Hasan Dağı 3,268 m of Cappadocia, Uludağ 2,543 m over Bursa (the Mysian Olympus; the ski resort of 1933), the Taurus's Demirkazık 3,756 m (the Aladağlar), Nemrut Dağ 2,134 m with the Commagene heads; the mean elevation about 1,100 m — the highest of Europe's countries if counted there |
| Lowest point | Sea level — the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Marmara and the Black Sea coasts (no land below the sea; the Black Sea's surface itself the same level); the lowest inland basins the Çukurova delta of the Seyhan and Ceyhan at Adana (about 20 m), the Menderes and Gediz plains of the Aegean, the Bafra and Çarşamba deltas of the Black Sea; the deepest point of the sea the Black Sea's 2,212 m off the Turkish coast and the Mediterranean's 4,000-plus m of the Antalya basin by the charts; the Marmara's 1,370 m; the Lake Van basin at 1,640 m the high lake and the Hazar lake's; the Istanbul Bosphorus's floor at 110 m at its deepest, the Marmaray tunnel at 60 m under it (the deepest immersed tube of its time), the Eurasia Tunnel at 106 m |
| Longest river | The Kızılırmak ("the Red River"; the Halys of the Greeks and of Croesus's oracle) — 1,355 km from the Kızıldağ of Sivas's İmranlı in the arc round Cappadocia and north to the Black Sea at Bafra, the longest river entirely in the country; the Euphrates (Fırat; 2,800 km in all, about 1,230 inside the border from the Karasu and Murat's meeting above the Keban dam to Syria — the Atatürk Dam of 1990 (2,400 MW; the GAP's keystone), Keban (1974) and Karakaya (1987)), the Tigris (Dicle; 1,900 km, about 500 in the country — the Ilısu dam of 2020 that drowned Hasankeyf), the Sakarya 824 km, the Yeşilırmak 519, the Çoruh of the rafting (the Deriner dam of 2012), the Seyhan and the Ceyhan of Çukurova, the Büyük Menderes (the "meander" of the English word), the Gediz, the Meriç/Evros of the Greek border, the Aras of the Armenian; the Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) of 22 dams and 19 power plants on the two Mesopotamian rivers (the Iraqi and Syrian water complaints of the decades — both lines stated); the DSİ's 1,100 dams by the count |
| Largest lake | Lake Van (Van Gölü) — 3,755 km², the largest lake of the country and the world's largest soda lake, at 1,640 m in the eastern highland (the Nemrut volcano's lava dam of its outlet; 451 m deep; the Akdamar island's Armenian cathedral of 921; the Van cat; the Deveboynu peninsula's national park of 31 August 2026, the 54th); Lake Tuz (Tuz Gölü, 1,665 km² by the count, 1,600 by another) the salt lake of the plateau south of Ankara (two meters deep, the summer salt flats of the 60% of the country's salt, the flamingos; shrinking in the drought), Beyşehir (656 km²; the largest freshwater lake), Eğirdir (482), İznik (the Nicaea of the councils; the submerged basilica of 2014), Akşehir, Burdur, the Sapanca and Kuş lakes of the Marmara, Hazar of Elazığ, Çıldır of Kars (the ice-fishing lake); the reservoirs — the Atatürk Dam's 817 km² the largest lake of all by the surface, Keban's 675; the shrinking lakes of the 2020s' drought (Tuz, Burdur, Akşehir, Marmara Lake of Manisa gone dry in 2021) the climate file |
| Largest island | Gökçeada (Imbros) — 286.8 km² (279 by another count), the Aegean island off the Dardanelles' mouth with the westernmost point of the country at Cape Avlaka, about 10,000 people (the Greek Orthodox community of the 1960s' 6,000 reduced to a few hundred), the organic-farming island and the Lausanne minority's returning summer; Marmara Island (117 km²; the marble of the Proconnesus quarries of the Roman columns), Bozcaada (Tenedos; 40 km²; the wine and the castle), the Princes' Islands of Istanbul (Büyükada the largest at 5.4 km²; the exile island of Trotsky in 1929–33; the phaetons replaced by electric buses in 2020), Cunda (Alibey) of Ayvalık, Kekova of the sunken Lycian city, the Datça and Bozburun peninsulas' islets; the islands about 500 in all by the count (the Greek Aegean's 3,000-odd against them); Cyprus the big island the republic never held (the TRNC of 1983 recognized by Ankara alone) |
| Climate | Three climates by the Köppen map — Mediterranean on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts (Csa: the dry hot summers of Antalya's 34 °C and the mild wet winters; about 1,000 mm at Antalya), oceanic and humid subtropical on the Black Sea (Cfa/Cfb: the rain in every month — Rize's 2,310 mm the wettest, the tea and hazelnuts, the fog of the Pontic slopes), continental on the plateau and the east (Dsa/Dsb and the semi-arid BSk steppe of Konya's 360 mm and Ankara's 390 mm; the −30 °C nights of Erzurum and Kars, the snow of Ağrı, the 50 °C of the Syrian border's Silopi and Cizre), the Marmara between them (Istanbul's 685 mm, the 14 °C mean, the lodos and poyraz winds, the January snows of some years); the records — 50.5 °C at Silopi on 25 July 2025 (the national record of the 2025 heat) and −46.4 °C at Çaldıran (Van) on 9 January 1990 by the record; the 2025 drought that cut the farm output by 8.8%, the wildfires of 2021 and 2025 (81,473 hectares), the floods of the Black Sea (Kastamonu 2021) and Hatay (May 2026), the Istanbul water reservoirs' summer alarms; the Paris Agreement ratified in October 2021, COP31 at Antalya of 9–20 November 2026 the host |
| Natural hazards | Earthquakes above all — the North Anatolian Fault of 1,500 km from Erzincan to the Marmara (the 1939 Erzincan quake of 26–27 December, M7.8, about 33,000 dead; the 1999 İzmit quake of 17 August, M7.6, 17,479 dead by the IFRC's count and 18,373 by another — both stated; the Düzce of November 1999) and the East Anatolian Fault (THE KAHRAMANMARAŞ EARTHQUAKES OF 6 FEBRUARY 2023, M7.7 at 04:17 and M7.6 at 13:24 — 53,537 dead by the Interior Ministry's count of February 2024, 53,697 by a later line, 107,213 injured, 11 provinces, the republic's deadliest disaster), the Marmara quake of 23 April 2025 (M6.2 off Silivri; no deaths), the Sındırgı quakes of 10 August (M6.1; two dead) and 27 October 2025 (M6.1), the expected "big one" of Istanbul (the 1766 and 1894 quakes' recurrence — the AFAD's 1.5 million risky buildings by the count); the floods and landslides of the Black Sea (Kastamonu, Sinop and Bartın of 11 August 2021 — 82 dead) and of Hatay (21 May 2026; three dead); the wildfires of the Aegean and Mediterranean summers (Manavgat 2021; the 2025 season's 3,224 fires and 81,473 hectares, the ten forestry workers dead near Eskişehir); the avalanches of the east (Van, February 2020 — 41 dead); the drought of 2020–25 and the water cuts; the volcanoes dormant (Ararat 1840, Nemrut 1692, Erciyes); the mine disasters (Soma 13 May 2014 — 301 dead; Amasra 14 October 2022 — 42); the AFAD of 2009 the agency; the earthquake tax of 1999 the memory |
| Nearby countries | Greece (the Evros/Meriç line of 206 km by one count and 203 by another; the Aegean's islands and the 12-mile question; the High-Level Cooperation Council's sixth meeting at Ankara of 11 February 2026 — the Thessaloniki–İzmir ferry and the "calm waters"), Bulgaria (240–269 km; the Kapıkule gate of the lorries to Europe), Georgia (252–276 km; the Sarp gate, the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway of 2017), Armenia (268–328 km; the border closed since 1993 — Vice President Yılmaz at Yerevan on 4 May 2026, the opening tied to the peace treaty and the Armenian constitution by the lines, the Kars–Iğdır–Dilucu railway of 224 km under construction), Azerbaijan (the 9–18 km of Nakhchivan; "one nation, two states"; the Zangezur route), Iran (499–560 km; the Gürbulak gate, the gas, the 2026 war's four missiles intercepted over the border in March), Iraq (352–384 km; the Habur gate, the troops in the north against the PKK, the Development Road), Syria (822–911 km; the longest — the post-Assad relationship of December 2024, the troops in the north, the 639,995 returns by the UNHCR's count of April 2026 and 667,565 by Ankara's — both stated); Cyprus 70 km off (the TRNC of 1983 and the Republic's EU membership of 2004; the two-state line of Ankara against the UN's federation; Tufan Erhürman the Turkish Cypriot leader since 19 October 2025); Russia and Ukraine across the Black Sea (the Istanbul talks of 2025, Zelensky's visit of 4 April 2026, the Akkuyu plant of Rosatom) |
| Minerals and resources | Boron — about 70% of the world's reserves at Eskişehir's Kırka, Balıkesir's Bigadiç and Kütahya's Emet (Eti Maden's state monopoly; the 3 billion metric tons; the borax of the glass and the ceramics), chromite (Fethiye, Elazığ; among the world's top producers), marble and natural stone (the world's first exporter — Afyon, Marmara, Burdur; US$2 billion a year by the counts), gold (Kışladağ, Çöpler — the cyanide-heap landslide of 13 February 2024 at İliç that killed nine, the Ovacık; the 32 metric tons of 2024 by the count), copper (Murgul, Çayeli), zinc, feldspar (the world's first), bentonite, perlite, magnesite, the lignite of the power plants (the 34% of the electricity from coal in 2025 — two-thirds of it imported hard coal), the oil of Batman and the Gabar field (about 80,000 barrels a day of the 180,000 national total by the ministry's 2026 lines), THE SAKARYA GAS FIELD of the Black Sea (found 21 August 2020; 710 billion m³ by the reserve count; about 9.5 million m³ a day in 2026 and 20 million planned for the Osman Gazi platform's start of late 2026), the rare earths of Beylikova (Eskişehir; the 694 million-ton claim of 2022 — stated as the ministry's), the thermal springs (the 1,500 of the spas), the sun and the wind (the 27.9 GW of solar and 15.4 GW of wind of August 2026), the water of the Euphrates and Tigris, the hazelnut (70% of the world) and the soil of Çukurova |
| Protected areas | Fifty-four national parks by the count (Van Gölü Deveboynu Yarımadası the 54th, declared on 31 August 2026) — Yozgat Çamlığı the first (1958), the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park (1973; the battlefields), Olympos-Beydağları, Köprülü Canyon, Kaçkar Mountains, Nemrut Dağ, Mount Ida (Kaz Dağları; the gold-mine protests of 2019), Küre Mountains, Ilgaz, Aladağlar, Munzur Valley, Dilek Peninsula, Saklıkent, Lake Beyşehir, Kuşcenneti (the bird paradise of Bandırma), the Göreme Historical National Park of Cappadocia (1986; the World Heritage site), Honaz, Yedigöller; the 14 Ramsar wetlands (Sultan Sazlığı, Lake Manyas, Göksu delta, Lake Burdur, Lake Uluabat, Gediz delta, the Akyatan lagoon, Kızılırmak delta, Meke Maar, Yumurtalık, Kuyucuk, Kızören, Seyfe, Nemrut caldera — 184,487 hectares), the Camili (Macahel) biosphere reserve of 2005 (the only one), the Kula-Salihli UNESCO Global Geopark of 2013 (the only one; the cinder cones of "the burnt land"), the 250-odd nature parks and the nature reserves, the special environmental protection areas of the coast (Köyceğiz-Dalyan, Fethiye-Göcek, Patara, Belek), the 580 Blue Flag beaches of 2026 (the third in the world after Spain and Greece; Antalya's 232), the forests' 23.4 million hectares (29% of the land by the OGM's count); the Istanbul Canal and the Northern Forests' file the environmental quarrel of the decade — both lines stated (LAW 2) |
| Extreme points | North: the Kofçaz district of Kırklareli on the Bulgarian line at 42°06′ N by the official list (Cape İnceburun near Sinop at 42°06′ N the northernmost point of the Anatolian shore and the Black Sea coast's cape); South: the Kale stream's spring at Yayladağı in Hatay on the Syrian line at 35°49′ N (the Samandağ coast the southernmost shore); West: Cape Avlaka on Gökçeada at 25°40′ E (the mainland's westernmost at Enez on the Meriç mouth, about 26° E); East: the Dilucu border gate of Aralık (Iğdır) at the Nakhchivan line at 44°49′ E; the highest Ararat 5,137 m and the lowest sea level; the geographic center the Kırşehir–Yozgat plateau by the schools' line (the "center of Türkiye" monument of Kırşehir); the deepest cave the Peynirlikönü (Mersin, 1,429 m — among the world's deepest); the longest beach Patara's 18 km; the farthest province from Ankara Hakkari at 1,400 km by road; the Bosphorus 31 km long and 700 m wide at its narrowest, the Dardanelles 61 km |
| Land and water | 783,562 km² — 769,604 km² of land and 13,930 km² of water (the lakes and the dams; 1.8%) by TÜİK's division (783,356 by the other count — both stated); arable land about 20% and the permanent crops about 4% by the land-use lines (the 23 million hectares of farmland of the counts — the wheat of the plateau, the hazelnuts, the olives' 190 million trees, the citrus, the cotton, the tea), the pastures about 19%, the forests 29% (23.4 million hectares by the OGM — the Black Sea's and the Taurus's pines, the Thracian oaks, the Istanbul Northern Forests' file), the mountains and the steppe the rest; the irrigated 6.5 million hectares by the DSİ's count (the GAP's 1.8 million target, the half reached); the 1,100 dams of the DSİ; the renewable water about 112 billion m³ a year and the per-head 1,300 m³ ("water-stressed" by the UN's line against the 1,700 threshold); the land-use quarrel — the Istanbul Canal (the 2021 start of the Sazlıdere bridge; "not on the agenda" by the minister of 2025), the mines of Mount Ida and İliç, the hotels of the coasts (LAW 2, the state's "development" and the environmentalists' lines both stated) |
| Islands and coasts | About 7,200 km of coast on four seas by the common count (8,333 km with the islands by the other) — the Black Sea's 1,700 km from Rezovo at the Bulgarian line to Sarp at the Georgian (Sinop, Samsun, Trabzon, Rize; the hazelnut and tea slopes, the Sümela monastery), the Marmara's 1,000 km inside the two straits (Istanbul's Bosphorus 31 km, the Dardanelles 61 km, the Princes' Islands, the Marmara Island's marble), the Aegean's 2,800 km of bays and ruins (the Gallipoli peninsula, Ayvalık, İzmir, Çeşme, Kuşadası, Bodrum, Datça, Marmaris — the Greek islands in sight), the Mediterranean's 1,600 km (the Turquoise Coast of Fethiye, Kaş, Antalya, Alanya, the Çukurova delta, Mersin, İskenderun, Samandağ) — the 500-odd islands by the count (Gökçeada 286.8 km², Marmara, Bozcaada, Büyükada, Cunda, Kekova), the Lycian Way of 540 km (760 with the extensions by the count) and the Carian Trail; the 580 Blue Flag beaches (2026), the Patara, Ölüdeniz, İztuzu (the loggerheads), Kleopatra and Çıralı beaches; the ports of Ambarlı, Mersin, Kocaeli, Aliağa and Tekirdağ in the world's top 100 (11.4 million TEU of 2024), the cruise port of Galataport (2021); the straits' traffic of 84,640 ships in 2025 (the Bosphorus 40,172, the Dardanelles 44,468 — the record) under the Montreux Convention of 20 July 1936; the exclusive economic zone question of the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean (the "Blue Homeland" doctrine and the Greek-Cypriot EEZ — both lines stated, LAW 2) |
| The country | The land bridge of two continents in a dozen landscapes — Istanbul's domes and towers across the Bosphorus and the Thracian wheat beyond; the Marmara's factories and the Ottoman first capital of Bursa under Uludağ; the Aegean's olive terraces, the Ionian ruins of Ephesus and Pergamon and the Troy of the Iliad; the Turquoise Coast of the Lycian tombs and the Antalya hotels; the Çukurova cotton and the Hatay of the three faiths; the plateau's wheat sea round Ankara with Cappadocia's fairy chimneys and the balloons at dawn, Konya's Mevlana and the Tuz salt flats; the Black Sea's wet green slopes of hazelnut and tea under the Kaçkar; the eastern highland of Ararat, Van's blue lake and the Kars winters; the southeast's Göbekli Tepe, the Euphrates dams and the Diyarbakır walls; the 973 districts and the 81 provinces of a state that is Europe's and Asia's at once, the 86 million of 2025 and the 15.75 million of one city; the Türkiye of the 2022 name and the Turkey of the old maps on the same ground |
People
| Population | 86,092,168 at the address-based count of 31 December 2025 (TÜİK, 9 February 2026) — 85,664,944 in 2024, 85,372,377 in 2023, 85,279,553 in 2022, 84,680,273 in 2021, 83,614,362 in 2020, 73.7 million in 2010, 67,803,927 at the 2000 census, 56.5 million in 1990, 44.7 million in 1980, 35.6 million in 1970, 27.8 million in 1960, 20.9 million in 1950, 13,648,270 at the first census of 28 October 1927 — the sixfold growth of the republic's century; the 427,224 added in 2025 (5.0 per thousand) after the near-stagnation of 2022–24 (the fall of the births, the quake's deaths, the emigration); the UN's 87.7 million estimate for 2025 — both stated; the 18th most populous country; TÜİK's 2023 projection of a peak and then a decline before the century's end; the foreign residents 1,519,515 (the Syrians under temporary protection — 2,264,983 on 25 June 2026 by the Interior Ministry — outside the count, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Russians and Ukrainians of 2022, the Iranians) |
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| Growth rate | About 0.5% a year (5.0 per thousand in 2025 after 3.4 in 2024 and 1.1 in 2023 by TÜİK — the lowest of the republic in the quake year and the lowest run since the 1920s) — the births 895,374 in 2025 (the crude rate 10.4 per thousand against 20.3 in 2001 and the 1.3 million births of the 2010s' peak), the deaths 491,684 (5.7 per thousand; the circulatory diseases 34.7% of them, the tumors 16.1%), the natural increase about 404,000, the net migration small (the Syrians' returns against the Russians' and the emigrants' leaving — the "brain drain" of the doctors and the engineers to Germany by the counts); the 1.5% a year of the 1990s and the 2.5% of the 1960s the past; the 2025 count's rise to 86.09 million read by the state as "the stabilization" and by the demographers as "the aging's start" — both stated; the population to peak later in the century by TÜİK's projection |
| Fertility rate | 1.42 children per woman in 2025 by TÜİK's count of 21 May 2026 (1.49 in 2024 by the release's revised figure, 1.48 by the earlier one — both stated; 1.51 in 2023, 2.38 in 2001) — the ninth year below the 2.10 replacement line, the lowest of the republic; Şanlıurfa's 3.15 the highest province and Bartın's 1.09 the lowest, the Kurdish southeast above 2 and the west below 1.4 (Istanbul 1.26); the mean age at birth 29.4 and at the first birth 27.5; the births 895,374 (51.4% boys) against the 1.3 million of 2013; the President's "at least three children" line of 2008 and the "Year of the Family" of 2025 with the marriage loans and the birth payments (the 2026 budget's family lines) against the women's groups' "the cost of living and the care" — both stated (LAW 2); the 7,200-day pension rule and the housing prices the demographers' explanations; the family-planning policies of the 1965 law reversed in the 2010s' speeches |
| Life expectancy | 78.5 years at birth by TÜİK's 2023–25 period count (29 July 2026; 81.1 for women, 75.9 for men — the 5.2-year gap; 78.1 for 2022–24, the pandemic's dip of 2020–21 recovered) — the UN's 77.7 for 2024 by the other count — both stated; the infant mortality 7.8 per 1,000 live births in 2025 (9.0 in 2024; about 55 in 1990 by the UN's count — the republic's quiet success), the maternal mortality about 13 per 100,000; the leading causes of death the circulatory diseases (34.7%), the cancers (16.1%) and the respiratory diseases (15.1%) by the 2025 count; the COVID-19 toll about 102,000 by the official count of 2020–23 (the excess-death estimates higher — both stated); the smoking's 28% of adults among the OECD's highest (the 2008 indoor ban; the 2025 tobacco tax rises), the obesity 32% by the WHO's count; the 65-and-over 9.58 million (11.1%) in 2025 against 7.95 million in 2020 — the aging the health system's next weight |
| Age structure | 0–14 years 20.4%, 15–64 68.5%, 65 and over 11.1% by the 2025 count (the 65-plus 9.58 million against the 7.95 million of 2020 — "aged" by the UN's 10% line since 2022) — the median age 34.9 (34.2 for men, 35.7 for women; 28.3 in 2007), the youth bulge of the 2000s passed; the working-age share the demographic window of the 2010s–30s by the planners' line; the 15–24s about 15% (the youth unemployment 13–15%); the Kurdish provinces the youngest (Şanlıurfa's median about 22, Şırnak's), the Black Sea's and the Aegean's the oldest (Sinop's about 42); the pensioners 17.7 million (one in five people) on the SGK's rolls after the early-retirement (EYT) law of 3 March 2023 that retired 2.3 million at once; the dependency ratio about 46 per 100 by the count; the 2026 budget's old-age lines and the "silver economy" the planners' new phrase |
| Urbanization | 93.6% in the province and district centers by the 2025 count (the 2012 metropolitan law that reclassified the villages of 30 provinces as neighborhoods lifted the share from 77% to 91% in one year — the "real" urban share about 80% by the demographers' line; both stated) — Istanbul 15.75 million (the 39 districts; Esenyurt's 1 million the largest district of the country, Bağcılar, Pendik), Ankara 5.91 million, İzmir 4.50, Bursa 3.26, Antalya 2.78, Konya 2.34, Adana, Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep, Kocaeli above 2 million; the gecekondu ("built overnight") squatter belts of the 1950s–80s migration turned into the TOKİ blocks and the "urban transformation" of the 2012 law (the earthquake-risk demolitions; the 6.5 million risky dwellings by the ministry's count), the 500,000 "social housing" units of the October 2025 program, the rents of Istanbul (₺368 a m² a month in late 2025 — the 41% rise in a year) the young's grievance; the villages of the east and the Black Sea emptying; the 6.4% in the towns and villages the remnant of the 75% rural of 1950 |
| Ethnic groups | Turks about 70–75% and Kurds about 15–20% by the estimates (no ethnic question in the census since 1965; the CIA's 70–75/19 and the KONDA surveys' 15–18% Kurdish both stated) — the Kurds of the southeast and the migrant quarters of Istanbul (the largest Kurdish city by the count), Mersin and İzmir, the Zazas of Tunceli and Bingöl among them; the Arabs of Hatay, Mardin, Şanlıurfa and Siirt (about 1.5–2 million; the 2.26 million Syrians beside them), the Circassians and the Abkhaz of the 1864 exile (about 2 million by the associations' counts), the Laz and the Hemshin of the Black Sea, the Georgians of Artvin, the Bosniaks, the Albanians, the Pomaks and the Crimean Tatars of the Balkan and Russian migrations, the Azeris of Iğdır and Kars, the Roma (about 500,000–2 million by the counts), the Armenians (about 60,000), the Greeks (about 2,000 of the 1955 pogrom's 100,000), the Jews (about 14,000), the Syriacs of Tur Abdin (about 25,000), the Yazidis, the Chaldeans; the Lausanne Treaty's three recognized minorities (Greek, Armenian, Jewish) against the others' unrecognized status — the state's "citizens of Türkiye" and the Kurdish movement's "peoples" lines both stated (LAW 2); the "Terror-free Türkiye" process of 2025–26 the question's newest chapter |
| Languages | Turkish the official language (Article 3) and the mother tongue of about 85% by the estimates — the Istanbul standard of the 1928 alphabet and the 1932 Language Association's purge (the Ottoman Turkish of the Arabic script a dead language of the archives; the "Öztürkçe" of the republic's coinages), the Turkic family's largest tongue (the Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uyghur of the 170 million Turkic speakers its cousins); Kurdish (Kurmanji about 12–15%, Zazaki about 2–3%) the second — banned in public from 1983 to 1991, the private courses of 2003, the TRT Kurdî channel of 1 January 2009, the elective school lessons since 2012, the universities' departments of Mardin and Muş; Arabic (the Hatay dialect, the Syrians'), Circassian, Laz, Georgian, Armenian, Greek, Ladino (the Sephardic Spanish of the Jews, a few thousand speakers), Bosnian, Albanian, Romani, Syriac (the Tur Abdin Aramaic); English the schools' foreign language (the "Türkiye" campaign's own English), German of the diaspora, Russian of the tourists' coasts; the Turkish Sign Language; the literacy 97% (the women 95%); the "bütün" of the dotless ı the keyboards' trap |
| Religion | Islam about 99% by the state's old identity-card line — Sunni of the Hanafi school the majority (the Diyanet of 1924 under the Presidency; about 90,000 mosques — the Çamlıca mosque of 2019 the largest, the Sultanahmet, the Süleymaniye, the Selimiye of Sinan; the Friday sermon written in Ankara; the imams' 130,000 the state's clergy), the Alevis about 10–20% by the estimates (the cemevis and the dedes; the Alevi-Bektashi Culture and Cemevi Presidency of 2022; the Madımak of 1993 and the Maraş of 1978 the wounds), the Shafi'i Kurds, the Jafari Shia of the Azeri towns, the Sufi orders banned in 1925 and alive (the Naqshbandi, the Mevlevi of Konya's Sema), the Nurcu and the Gülen movement (FETÖ by the state's name since the 2016 coup attempt — the 2026 trials' continuing file); the Christians about 0.2–0.4% — the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (Bartholomew I; the Halki seminary closed since 1971), the Armenian Patriarchate (Sahak II), the Syriac Orthodox (the Mor Gabriel monastery of 397; the new Istanbul church of 2023 — the republic's first), the Latin and Chaldean Catholics, the Protestants (the pastor Brunson case of 2016–18); the Jews about 14,000 (the Hahambaşı; the Neve Shalom bombings of 1986 and 2003); the Bahá'ís, the Yazidis; the deists and the non-believers about 3–10% by the surveys; Pope Leo XIV's visit of 27–30 November 2025 for Nicaea's 1,700 years; the laicism of Article 2 against the Diyanet's weight — both lines stated (LAW 2) |
| Health | The Ministry of Health's system under the Social Security Institution's (SGK) universal coverage of 2012 (the "Health Transformation Program" of 2003–13 — the family physicians, the free emergency care, the 97% coverage) — the city hospitals (şehir hastanesi) of the 2017–25 public-private program (the Ankara Bilkent of 3,810 beds among the world's largest, the Istanbul Başakşehir of 2020; the 23 open by 2026 — the state's "world-class" and the critics' "the guarantees' cost" both stated, LAW 2), the 1,500 hospitals and the 250,000 beds by the counts, the 200,000 doctors (the 2.3 per 1,000 among the OECD's lowest; the emigration of about 3,000 a year by the TTB's count — the "go then" of 2022), the 4.5% of GDP on health; the pandemic's 102,000 dead by the official count (the first case of 11 March 2020; the Turkovac vaccine); the earthquake's 107,213 injured of 2023; the medicine price quarrels of the lira's fall, the private hospitals' 20% of the care; life expectancy 78.5; the smoking and the obesity the two burdens; the Red Crescent (Kızılay, 1868) of the blood and the quakes; the thermal spas of Afyon and Pamukkale; the medical tourism of the hair transplants and the dentistry (about 1.5 million patients a year by the ministry's count); Minister Kemal Memişoğlu |
| Education | Free and compulsory for 12 years by the "4+4+4" law of 2012 (the primary of four years from six, the middle of four, the high school of four — the general lycées, the vocational and the imam-hatip schools of the 2010s' expansion to about 1.5 million pupils), about 20 million pupils and 1.2 million teachers (the 2026–27 year opened in September 2026 with the "parent donations" quarrel), the exams of the LGS (the high-school entry) and the YKS (the university entry of about 3 million candidates a year), the "Century of Türkiye Maarif Model" curriculum of 2024 (the state's "values" and the teachers' unions' "religion" readings both stated, LAW 2); the universities 208 by the YÖK's count (129 state, 79 foundation) with about 7 million students — Istanbul University (1453/1933), Istanbul Technical (1773), Boğaziçi (the 2021 rector protests), METU, Ankara, Hacettepe, Bilkent, Koç, Sabancı, Ege; the Erasmus's first host of Europe by the counts; the literacy 97%; the PISA of 2022 below the OECD mean in the three fields; the TÜBİTAK of 1963, the ASELSAN and TUSAŞ engineers, the Teknofest of the drones; the private "dershane" cram schools closed in 2015 and reborn; the headscarf allowed in the schools since 2014; the Kurdish elective since 2012; Minister Yusuf Tekin |
| Migrants and diaspora | The diaspora about 6.5 million by the foreign ministry's counts (the "Turks abroad" of the YTB presidency of 2010) — Germany's 3.08 million of Turkish background (the Destatis count of 2025; 1.47 million born in Türkiye — the Gastarbeiter agreement of 30 October 1961, the Kreuzberg and the döner; the German citizens of Turkish origin about 1.5 million; the Berlin vote of 2023 that went 67% to Erdoğan), France about 700,000, the Netherlands 430,000, Austria 300,000, Belgium, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (the Cypriot and the Kurdish Turks of London), the United States (about 500,000), Australia, Canada, the Gulf's workers, the Central Asian and Balkan Turks of the old empire's lines (the Bulgarian Turks of the 1989 exodus, the Western Thrace Greeks' Turkish minority, the Meskhetians, the Ahiska, the Uyghurs' Istanbul); the immigrants — the 2,264,983 Syrians under temporary protection (25 June 2026; 3.7 million at the 2021 peak; the returns of 639,995 by the UNHCR's and 667,565 by Ankara's counts since 8 December 2024 — both stated; the 238,000 naturalized), the 1.52 million foreign residents (the Iraqis, the Afghans — the 2021 fence on the Iranian line, the Russians and Ukrainians of 2022, the Iranians, the Europeans of the coasts), the irregular migration's 2024–26 pushbacks and returns by the counts; the EU–Turkey statement of 18 March 2016 (the €6 billion); the brain drain — about 100,000 citizens a year by the emigration counts of 2022–24 (the doctors, the IT engineers; the "Berlin or bust" of the young) — the state's "the returnees" and the surveys' "the half that wants to leave" both stated (LAW 2) |
| Social indicators | HDI 0.853 (2023; 45th, "very high"); Gini 0.410 (2025 by TÜİK — 0.413 in 2024; the top fifth's 48% and the bottom fifth's 6.4% of the income, the 7.5 ratio); the at-risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion rate 27.9% (2025; 36.8% of the children); the unemployment 7.8% (August 2026; the youth's 13.0%, the women's 10.1%) against the broad underutilization of 30.6% (July 2026) — both stated (the "lowest since 2005" of the state and the "hidden jobless" of DİSK both stated, LAW 2); the minimum wage ₺28,075 net (2026; the 7–9.5 million earners — about half the paid employees) against the Türk-İş hunger line of ₺37,801 and poverty line of ₺123,130 for a family of four (September 2026); the pensioners 17.7 million with the minimum pension ₺23,552 (July 2026); the public employees 5.4 million (2026); the women's labor participation about 36%; the femicides (the KCDP platform's 394 of 2024 and the 2025 count above it; the Istanbul Convention left on 1 July 2021 — the state's "family" and the women's groups' lines both stated, LAW 2); the home ownership about 56%; the cars 32 million; the internet 88%; the smoking 28%; the 2023 earthquake's 3.6 million displaced and the 455,357 units delivered by August 2026 |
| Cities and provinces | The 81 provinces by the 2025 count — Istanbul 15,754,053; Ankara 5,910,320; İzmir 4,504,185; Bursa 3,263,011; Antalya 2,777,677; Konya 2,343,409; Adana about 2.27 million; Şanlıurfa 2.26; Gaziantep 2.2; Kocaeli 2.15; Mersin 1.95; Diyarbakır 1.83; Hatay (the quake's 1.5 million of 2025 after the 1.69 of 2022 — the loss of a tenth); Manisa, Kayseri, Samsun, Balıkesir, Kahramanmaraş, Van, Aydın, Tekirdağ, Sakarya, Denizli, Muğla, Mardin, Eskişehir, Malatya, Erzurum, Trabzon, Ordu the metropolitan rest; Bayburt (about 85,000) and Tunceli the smallest; the growth of the Antalya and Tekirdağ coasts and the fall of the east's Ardahan, Kars and Tunceli (the emigration of the villages), the quake provinces' return of 2024–25; the 973 districts (Istanbul's 39, Ankara's 25, İzmir's 30), the 30 metropolitan municipalities and the 1,390 municipalities, the 18,000 villages and the 50,000 neighborhoods' muhtars elected on 31 March 2024; the governors (vali) of the Interior Ministry and the elected mayors (the 2024 elections' CHP map of the big cities — Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Antalya, Adana — now with Istanbul's elected mayor jailed and the trustee question; both lines stated, LAW 2) |
| Names and customs | The names — Mehmet, Mustafa, Ahmet, Ali and Hüseyin the men's commonest by the register (Alparslan, Yusuf and Göktuğ the newborn boys' of 2025 by TÜİK), Fatma, Ayşe, Emine, Hatice and Zeynep the women's (Zeynep, Defne and Asel the girls'), the surnames of the Surname Law of 21 June 1934 (Atatürk's own by the Assembly of 24 November 1934; the Öztürk, Yılmaz, Kaya, Demir, Şahin, Çelik of the registers), the "Bey" and "Hanım" of address, the "abla" and "abi" of the street; the customs — the çay in the tulip glass at every meeting (the world's heaviest tea drinkers), the Turkish coffee's grounds read, the nazar boncuğu (the evil-eye bead) on every door and baby, the shoes off at the threshold, the kolonya on the hands, the hospitality's "misafir" (the guest of God), the bayram visits and the kissing of the elders' hands, the circumcision feasts (sünnet) of the boys in the white costumes, the kına gecesi (henna night) of the brides, the gold coins pinned at the weddings, the halay and the horon dances, the Nevruz of 21 March (the Kurdish fires), the Hıdrellez of 6 May (ICH 2017), the Ramadan drummers, the Kurban's sheep, the funeral's 40th day; the football derbies (Galatasaray–Fenerbahçe), the tavla and okey of the kahve, the hamam, the simit and the çay on the ferry; the "inşallah" and "maşallah" of the day |
| Media and sport culture | The TRT (1964; the state's 17 channels — TRT 1, TRT Haber, TRT World in English, TRT Kurdî, TRT Arabi), the private channels of the 1990s — Show TV, ATV and Kanal D (the Demirören group), Star, Now (the Fox of 2007–24), the opposition's Halk TV, Sözcü TV, Tele1 and KRT (the trustee of October 2025 at Tele1 in the espionage case), the news channels NTV, CNN Türk and Habertürk, the A Haber; the dailies — Hürriyet (1948), Sabah, Milliyet, Cumhuriyet (1924; the opposition's old voice), Sözcü, the pro-government Yeni Şafak and Türkiye, the Daily Sabah and Hürriyet Daily News in English, the BirGün and Evrensel of the left; the Anadolu Agency (1920); the RTÜK regulator's fines and the Press Freedom Index's 159th of 180 (2025) with the jailed journalists (about 30 by the counts of 2026) — the state's "the plural media" and the unions' "the captured media" both stated (LAW 2); the social media of 90% of the young (the law 7253 of 2020's representatives, the X throttling of the crisis days); the dizi — the TV series exported to about 170 countries for US$1 billion-plus a year by the ministry's 2025 line ("Magnificent Century", "Ertuğrul", "Yargı"); the sport — football the obsession (the "three big" of Istanbul and Trabzonspor; the 2025 betting scandal of 371 referees with accounts and 102 players banned), basketball (the 12 Giant Men; Şengün's NBA), the women's volleyball of the Sultans (the 2026 double), the wrestling of Kırkpınar, the weightlifting of Süleymanoğlu, the Istanbul Marathon's 41,000 (2025), the Formula 1's return of 2027 |
Government
| System | Unitary presidential republic under the constitution of 1982 as amended by the referendum of 16 April 2017 (51.4% yes; the 18 articles that ended the parliamentary system of 1923–2018) — the President elected for five years with the two-term limit (and the Article 116 exception: an Assembly vote of 360 to renew the elections opens a further candidacy — the 2028 question of the AKP–MHP's 326 seats; the adviser Uçum's 16 April 2028 proposal of June 2026), the head of state and of the executive who appoints the vice presidents and the ministers without the Assembly's vote, issues the presidential decrees, drafts the budget, chairs the National Security Council and names the judges' council's members and 12 of the Constitutional Court's 15 (the Assembly three); the Grand National Assembly of 600 with the laws, the budget and the impeachment by three-fifths; the Constitutional Court (15 judges; President Kadir Özkaya since April 2024), the Court of Cassation, the Council of State, the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) under the justice minister; the 81 provinces under appointed governors, the 30 metropolitan municipalities and the elected mayors (with the trustees of the removed); the National Security Council (MGK) of the generals and the ministers under the President; the "Türkiye Yüzyılı" of the state's self-description and the "competitive authoritarianism" of the political scientists' — both stated (LAW 2); the new constitution Erdoğan called for again on 1 October 2026 ("the most ideal period"; the 400 votes needed, the 360 for a referendum) and the opposition's refusal to write it with him |
|---|---|
| Head of state | President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (since 28 August 2014; the third term since 3 June 2023 under the 2017 constitution's count of two) — born 26 February 1954 at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul; the Welfare Party's mayor of Istanbul (1994–98), jailed for four months in 1999 for a poem recited at Siirt, the AKP's founder (14 August 2001) and Prime Minister (14 March 2003 – 28 August 2014) of the three election wins of 2002, 2007 and 2011, the President of 2014 (51.79%), 2018 (52.59%) and 2023 (52.18% in the runoff of 28 May over Kılıçdaroğlu); the executive presidency's first holder (9 July 2018), the AKP's chairman since 2017, the commander-in-chief, the chair of the MGK; the 2016 coup attempt's survivor (the Marmaris hotel, the FaceTime call), the 2023 earthquake's and the election's winner, the 2025–26 arrests of the opposition's leaders under his judiciary by the opposition's line and "the courts' independence" by his own (LAW 2); the host of NATO's Ankara summit (7–8 July 2026; Trump's visit — "we're going to be taking the sanctions off"), the guest of the White House (25 September 2025), the UN's rostrum of 22 September 2026 ("a Europe that excludes Türkiye cannot be stronger"), the Gaza ceasefire's guarantor of October 2025, the PKK process's sponsor; the question of 2028 (the renewal vote, the "re-elect" line of Justice Minister Gürlek of 18 September 2026, the opposition's "the constitution's two terms") both stated (LAW 2); First Lady Emine Erdoğan; the children Bilal, Esra (Berat Albayrak's wife), Sümeyye and Ahmet Burak |
| Head of government | The President (the prime minister's office abolished on 9 July 2018 — Binali Yıldırım the 27th and last) — the cabinet of 17 ministers and the vice president appointed by him: Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz (since 4 June 2023; the budget's and the Medium-Term Program's presenter, the PKK process board's chair), Foreign Hakan Fidan (since June 2023; the MİT's chief of 2010–23), Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek (since 3 June 2023 — the "return to rational ground" of the orthodox program; the Merrill Lynch strategist and the minister of 2009–18), Defense Yaşar Güler (the chief of general staff of 2018–23), Interior Mustafa Çiftçi and Justice Akın Gürlek since 11 February 2026 (the Erzurum governor and the Istanbul chief prosecutor of the İmamoğlu file — the reshuffle that brawled the Assembly; Yerlikaya and Tunç "asked to be relieved" by the Gazette's line), Energy Alparslan Bayraktar, Transport Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, Trade Ömer Bolat, Education Yusuf Tekin, Health Kemal Memişoğlu, Environment and Urbanization Murat Kurum (the AKP's Istanbul candidate of 2024; COP31's president), Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, Industry Mehmet Fatih Kacır, Agriculture İbrahim Yumaklı, Labor Vedat Işıkhan, Family Mahinur Özdemir Göktaş, Youth and Sports Osman Aşkın Bak; the MİT's İbrahim Kalın (since June 2023), the Communications Directorate's Burhanettin Duran (since 2025), the Presidential Complex's offices and the 9 policy councils; the Cabinet's meetings at Beştepe — the Assembly's confidence vote of the old system gone |
| Legislature | The Grand National Assembly of Türkiye (TBMM) of 600 at Ankara — the 28th Assembly of 14 May 2023 (the AKP 268, the CHP 169, the Green Left/DEM 61, the MHP 50, the İYİ 43, the YRP 5, the TİP 4 by the lists; 87.1% turnout) recomposed by the switches and the split: by the count of 14 August 2026 the AKP 280, the Yeni Parti 91, the DEM 56, the MHP 46, the CHP 44, the İYİ 27, the Yeni Yol (Saadet and DEVA's group of 10 January 2025) 20, the independents 10, the YRP 4, the HÜDA PAR 4, the TİP 3, the DBP 2, the EMEP 2, Saadet 1, the DSP 1, the DP 1, eight seats vacant; the People's Alliance (AKP–MHP) 326 and the opposition's 266-odd — the three-fifths of 360 for the constitutional amendments and the elections' renewal, the 400 to pass a constitution without a referendum; Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş (since 7 June 2023; the PKK process commission's chair); the 7% threshold and the D'Hondt lists of the 87 districts (Istanbul's three districts of 98 seats); the legislative year of October–July (the 1 October 2026 opening with the Yeni Parti's walkout; the first sitting of 6 October); the laws of 2026 — the PKK process's "national solidarity" law of 10 August (467–87), the tax law of 21 May, the budget of December; the bombed hall of 15 July 2016 kept as it was; the immunity files of the opposition's deputies (the 63 against Özel by the count) the running quarrel — both lines stated (LAW 2) |
| Parties | The Justice and Development Party (AKP; 14 August 2001; Erdoğan the chair — the 23 years of government since 3 November 2002; the "conservative democracy" of the first decade and the "Türkiye Yüzyılı" of the third; 35.5% at the 2024 local vote) with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP; 1969; Devlet Bahçeli since 1997 — the People's Alliance of 2018, the PKK process's unexpected sponsor of October 2024) and the New Welfare (YRP; Fatih Erbakan) at the edge; the opposition — THE YENİ PARTİ (the New Party) of Özgür Özel founded on 24 July 2026 at the First Assembly building with 91 deputies after the court ruling of 21 May 2026 removed him from the CHP's chair and reinstated Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (the "absolute nullity" case of the 2023 congress; the Court of Cassation's appeal pending; the 600,000 members by August, the mayors of İzmir and Bolu joined, İmamoğlu's "full support" from Silivri — the polls' first place by the autumn's lines), the Republican People's Party (CHP; 9 September 1923, Atatürk's; Kılıçdaroğlu again by the court's order with 44 deputies and the Istanbul trustee committee of September 2025 — the state's "the law" and the opposition's "judicial coup" both stated, LAW 2), the Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM; the HDP's successor of 2023; Tülay Hatimoğulları and Tuncer Bakırhan; 56 deputies; the İmralı delegation to Öcalan), the İYİ Party (2017; Müsavat Dervişoğlu since 2024; 27), the Yeni Yol group of Saadet (2001) and DEVA (Ali Babacan, 2020), the Future Party (Davutoğlu), the Victory Party (Zafer; Ümit Özdağ — the anti-migrant line; jailed in 2025), the Workers' Party (TİP), HÜDA PAR, the DSP, the DP; the 2023 presidential vote's Nation Alliance of six dissolved; the next test by May 2028 |
| Judiciary | The Constitutional Court of 15 (President Kadir Özkaya since April 2024; the individual applications since 2012 — the Can Atalay rulings the Court of Cassation defied in 2023–24), the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), the Council of State (Danıştay), the Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK of 2017 under the justice minister), the regional courts of appeal (2016), the high criminal and civil courts of the provinces, the peace criminal judgeships of the arrest warrants; THE TRIALS OF 2025–26 — Ekrem İmamoğlu's (the diploma annulled on 18 March 2025, the arrest of 23 March; the indictment of 11 November 2025 of 3,700 pages and 402 defendants — 142 counts, 828 to 2,352 years sought (2,430 by other counts), the trial since 9 March 2026 at Silivri's courtroom sitting four days a week; the espionage trial since May 2026 with the next hearing on 23 December; the insult sentence of 2 years 4 months of 11 September 2026; the Council of State's diploma appeal pending), the CHP's "absolute nullity" case (the Ankara regional court of 21 May 2026 that removed Özel and reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu; the Cassation appeal), the mayors' case of 24 August 2026 (Beşiktaş's Rıza Akpolat 21–23 years by the two counts, Adana's Karalar 6 years 3 months, the 200 defendants), the Kartalkaya fire's 11 life sentences of 31 October 2025, the 2016 coup's 4,000-odd life sentences, Osman Kavala's life since 25 April 2022 (the ECHR's 2019 and 2022 judgments defied), Selahattin Demirtaş's nine years in Edirne (the ECHR's final ruling of 3 November 2025; the 42-year Kobani sentence of 2024 — Bahçeli's "let him go home" of 4 August 2026 and the Justice Ministry's silence both stated); the Council of Europe's Article 46 infringement of 2022 — the state's "the independent courts" and the Bar's, the HRW's and the Venice Commission's "the captured judiciary" readings both stated (LAW 2); the death penalty abolished in 2004 (the last execution 1984) |
| Administrative divisions | The 81 provinces (il) under governors (vali) appointed by the President (the 2023–26 turnover; the Erzurum governor Çiftçi to the Interior), the 973 districts (ilçe) of TÜİK's 2025 count under the district governors (kaymakam), the 30 metropolitan municipalities of the 2012 law (the whole province one city; the 1,390 municipalities in all), the 18,000 villages and the 50,000 neighborhoods with their muhtars; the elected mayors of 31 March 2024 (the CHP's sweep of the 14 largest cities — Istanbul's İmamoğlu 51.1%, Ankara's Mansur Yavaş, İzmir's Cemil Tugay, Bursa's Bozbey, Antalya's Böcek, Adana's Karalar) and THE TRUSTEES (kayyum) — the 2016–19 removals of the HDP's mayors of the southeast (nearly a hundred) and the 2024–26 removals of the DEM's (Mardin, Batman, Halfeti, Tunceli's Ovacık) and the CHP's (Esenyurt's Özer on 30 October 2024, Şişli's, the Istanbul districts of 2025, Bursa's Bozbey detained on 31 March 2026, Uşak's Yalım) — 20 CHP mayors in jail and 25 suspended by the count of April 2026, the councils of Bursa, Bayrampaşa, Gaziosmanpaşa and Beykoz passed to the AKP by the council votes; Istanbul's interim mayor Nuri Aslan (CHP; 26 March 2025); the state's "corruption" and the opposition's "the ballot overturned" readings both stated (LAW 2); the local elections' next date 25 March 2029 by the record |
| Constitution and rights | The constitution of 7 November 1982 (the 1980 coup's text; 177 articles and the preamble, amended by the referendums of 1987, 1995, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2010 and 2017 among 20-odd changes) with the unamendable Articles 1–3 (the republic; the democratic, secular, social state of law; the flag, the anthem and the capital) — the rights chapter's freedoms of expression, the press, assembly and association under the "indivisible integrity" limits; the penal code's Article 299 (insulting the President — the 40,000-odd prosecutions of 2014–24 by the counts; İmamoğlu's 11 September 2026 sentence), Article 301 (the Turkish nation), the anti-terror law's Article 7/2 (the "propaganda" cases), the Decree 7253 of 2020 on the social platforms, the Istanbul Convention left on 1 July 2021; the ECHR's record (the most judgments of any member state), the Council of Europe's infringement over Kavala; the Kurdish question's rights (the mother-tongue, the DEM's trustees), the Alevi cemevi question, the LGBT bans of the Pride marches since 2015, the women's murders, the stray-dog law of 2024, the 2025 protests' 1,879 detentions in the İmamoğlu week and the 209 before the NATO summit of June 2026 — the state's "the security of the nation" and Amnesty's, HRW's and the Bar's "the shrinking space" both stated (LAW 2); the state of emergency of 20 July 2016 – 19 July 2018 (the 150,000 dismissed, the 32 decree-laws) the memory; the new-constitution debate of 2026 |
| Military | The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) — about 355,000 active by the IISS count and 481,000 by the broader counts with the 380,000 reservists — both stated; NATO's second army after the United States by the usual line; the Land Forces, the Navy (the TCG Anadolu amphibious carrier of 2023 — the drone carrier of the Bayraktar TB3's sonobuoys of September 2026; the MİLGEM corvettes, the submarines of the Reis class), the Air Force (the F-16s of the 240-odd; the KAAN fighter of the 21 February 2024 first flight — the 20 Block 10 ordered in May 2026 for 2028–30, Indonesia's 48; the 20 Eurofighters of the 27 October 2025 deal with Britain for 2030; the 40 F-16 Block 70s of the deadlocked U.S. deal; the F-35 exclusion of 2019 for the S-400 — Trump's "we'll take the sanctions off" of 7 July 2026 and the CAATSA still on the books by the count), the Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard under the Interior in peace; Chief of General Staff Gen. Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu (since 30 August 2025); the conscription of 6 months (the 2019 law; the paid exemption after one month), the professional NCOs' rise; the defense budget US$27.3 billion for 2026 (2.33% of GDP by the Defense News count; NATO's 5% of 2035 pledged); the defense industry — the exports of US$10.56 billion in 2025 (US$7.1 billion in 2024), ASELSAN, TUSAŞ, Baykar (the TB2 of the Karabakh and Ukraine wars; the Kızılelma unmanned fighter), Roketsan, the Altay tank's first delivery of 28 October 2025, the Mecca defense pact of 7 August 2026 with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; the operations — northern Syria since 2016 (the troops staying by Güler's February 2026 line), northern Iraq against the PKK (the Claw operations), Libya's mandate to 2027, the Steadfast Dart 2026 contingent (NATO's largest), the Iran war's intercepts; the 2016 coup attempt's purge of 24,000 officers by the count |
| Foreign relations | NATO's member since 18 February 1952 (the Ankara summit of 7–8 July 2026 — the €70 billion a year for Ukraine, the 5% of 2035, the first U.S. presidential visit in 11 years; Sweden's accession ratified in January 2024 after the 2022–23 hold), the EU's candidate since 1999 with the talks of 2005 frozen since 2018 (the customs union of 31 December 1995; the EIB's return of February 2026 after seven years; Commissioner Kos's visit of 6 February 2026; the visa and the Cyprus blocks), the Council of Europe's since 1950 (the Article 46 file), the OECD's, the G20's, the OIC's, the OSCE's, the Organization of Turkic States' (the "Turkic world" of Baku, Astana, Tashkent and Bishkek), the UN's founder (the Security Council bid; Erdoğan's "abolish the veto" of 22 September 2026); the United States — the ally and the quarrel (the S-400 of 2019, the CAATSA sanctions of 2020, the F-35's loss, the Halkbank case ended on 10 March 2026, the Golden Global Bank sanction of 4 September 2026 over Iran, the Gaza stabilization force Israel vetoed Türkiye's part in; the Trump–Erdoğan line of 2025–26 — "the sanctions off" promised, not yet lifted by the count); Russia — Akkuyu, the gas (the 22 bcm contracts extended a year), the S-400, the tourists' 6.9 million, the Istanbul talks of 16 May, 2 June and 23 July 2025 with Ukraine, the grain corridor of 2022–23; Ukraine — the TB2s, Zelensky at Istanbul on 4 April 2026; Israel — the trade cut of May 2024 made total on 29 August 2025 with the airspace and the ports, the Netanyahu arrest warrant of 14 July 2026 over the flotilla (the Interpol request of 21 August; "pathetic" by Netanyahu's office — both stated), the Gaza ceasefire of 10 October 2025 with Ankara among the four guarantors (MİT's "bridge" to Hamas); Syria — the post-Assad partner of December 2024 (the training deal of 13 August 2025, the SDF integration of 30 January 2026, the troops staying), Iraq (the Development Road of Basra–Türkiye; the water), Iran (the 2026 war's missiles over the border, the Patriots, the ceasefire's broker's role Erdoğan sought in August 2026), the Gulf (the Mecca pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan of 7 August 2026, the Qatar alliance, the UAE's investments), Egypt's reconciliation of 2024, Greece (the HLCC of 11 February 2026), Cyprus (the two-state line; Erhürman since October 2025), Armenia (Yılmaz at Yerevan on 4 May 2026; the border still shut), Azerbaijan (the Zangezur corridor), Africa's 44 embassies and the Somalia base, the Balkans, China (the Uyghur file), the Turkic summits; COP31 at Antalya of 9–20 November 2026 ahead; Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan |
| Police and security | The General Directorate of Security (EGM; the police of the cities — about 300,000 by the counts; the TOMA water cannons of the squares), the Gendarmerie General Command (the countryside; about 190,000), the Coast Guard, the Village Guards of the southeast (the 50,000 of the PKK war's years), the National Intelligence Organization (MİT; İbrahim Kalın since June 2023 — the Gaza mediation, the Syria file), the Interior Ministry under Mustafa Çiftçi (since 11 February 2026); THE PKK PROCESS — the "Terror-free Türkiye" of Bahçeli's October 2024 handshake: Öcalan's call of 27 February 2025, the ceasefire of 1 March, the dissolution congress of 5–7 May announced on 12 May 2025, the arms burned at Sulaymaniyah's Jasana cave on 11 July 2025 (30 fighters), the parliamentary commission of 5 August 2025 and its report of 18 February 2026 (47 for, 2 against), the withdrawal of the fighters to Qandil announced on 26 October 2025, THE LAW of 10 August 2026 (467–87; the Gazette of 17 August — the suspended sentences of 5 and 10 years for the applicants within six months of the National Security Council's disarmament report, no amnesty for the killings, Öcalan excluded; the board under Vice President Yılmaz met twice by 2 October 2026; the DEM's İmralı delegation of Buldan and Sancar; the house built on İmralı confirmed by Bahçeli on 14 September), the 40,000 dead of 1984–2025 by the usual count — the state's "the end of terror" and the critics' "the amnesty by another name" both stated (LAW 2); the ISIS raids (Yalova's Elmalı of 29 December 2025 — three police and six militants dead; the Istanbul consulate attack of 7 April 2026 — three attackers killed), the FETÖ cases of the decade, the 2025 betting-scandal raids, the Kartalkaya trial; the Iran war's four missiles intercepted over the southeast (4, 9, 13 and 30 March 2026) by the NATO Patriots of the southeast; the murders about 1,200 a year by the counts (the femicides' 394 of 2024); the traffic deaths about 6,000 |
| Elections | The vote at 18 (lowered from 25 to 18 in 2017 for the candidates) under the Supreme Election Council (YSK; Ahmet Yener the chair) — the presidential election of 14 and 28 May 2023 (Erdoğan 49.52% then 52.18%; Kılıçdaroğlu 44.88% then 47.82%; Sinan Oğan 5.17%; turnout 87% and 84%), the Assembly election of 14 May 2023 (the AKP 35.6%, the CHP 25.4%, the Green Left 8.8%, the MHP 10.1%, the İYİ 9.7%), the local elections of 31 March 2024 (the CHP 37.8% first nationally for the first time since 1977, the AKP 35.5%; turnout 78.6%; İmamoğlu's 51.1% in Istanbul over Murat Kurum), the 2019 Istanbul re-run of 23 June (54.2% after the annulment of 6 May) the memory; the referendums of 2010 (58%) and 2017 (51.4%); the next presidential and parliamentary elections due by May 2028 (the 7 May and 14 May dates both carried by the lists; the "renewal" by 360 votes that would move them and reopen Erdoğan's candidacy — the Uçum proposal of 16 April 2028, the AKP's and the MHP's 326 against the 360, the Yeni Parti's "we will win that election" — both stated, LAW 2), the local elections of 25 March 2029; the Yeni Parti's and the CHP's candidate question (İmamoğlu's primary of 23 March 2025 with 15.5 million ballots and his jail; Mansur Yavaş's name), the DEM's balance; the 7% threshold, the 600 seats, the 87 districts, the diaspora's votes at the customs gates and the consulates (the 3.4 million registered abroad) |
| The politics of 2024–26 in dates | 31 March 2024 — the local elections' CHP sweep (37.8%); 1 July — the stray-dog law's protests; 22 October — Bahçeli's call to Öcalan; 23 October — the TUSAŞ attack at Ankara (five dead); 30 October — Esenyurt's mayor removed; 8 December — Assad's fall (Fidan at Damascus on 22 December); 20 January 2025 — Ümit Özdağ arrested; 21 January — the Kartalkaya fire (78 dead); 27 February — Öcalan's call to disarm; 18 MARCH — İmamoğlu's diploma annulled; 19 MARCH — İMAMOĞLU DETAINED (23 March arrested; the protests of a million by the CHP's count, 1,879 detained); 23 April — the Marmara quake; 12 MAY — THE PKK DISSOLVES; 16 May — the Istanbul talks with Russia and Ukraine; 5 July — three more mayors detained (Adana, Antalya, Adıyaman); 11 JULY — THE ARMS BURNED at Sulaymaniyah; 5 August — the commission's first sitting; 2 September — the CHP's Istanbul congress annulled, Gürsel Tekin the trustee; 21 September — Özel re-elected at the extraordinary congress; 25 September — the White House; 24 October — the nullity case dismissed at first instance; 26 October — the PKK's withdrawal; 27 October — the Eurofighter deal; 11 NOVEMBER — THE İMAMOĞLU INDICTMENT (2,352 years sought); 27–30 November — Pope Leo XIV; 23 December — the minimum wage ₺28,075; 22 January 2026 — the rate cut to 37%; 11 FEBRUARY — THE RESHUFFLE (Gürlek, Çiftçi) and the brawl; 18 February — the commission's report; 28 February — the Iran war; 4–30 March — the four missiles intercepted; 9 MARCH — THE İMAMOĞLU TRIAL OPENS at Silivri; 31 March — Bursa's mayor detained; 4 April — Zelensky at Istanbul; 7 April — the consulate attack; 8 April — the Iran ceasefire; 21 MAY — THE CHP RULING (Kılıçdaroğlu reinstated); 24 May — the police at the CHP's headquarters; 7–8 JULY — NATO AT ANKARA (Trump); 10 July — the police at the CHP's Istanbul office; 15 July — the coup's 10th year; 24 JULY — THE YENİ PARTİ FOUNDED (91 deputies); 7 August — the Mecca pact; 10 AUGUST — THE PKK LAW (467–87); 24 August — the mayors' verdicts; 6 September — the Medium-Term Program; 11 September — İmamoğlu's insult sentence; 14 September — the İmralı house confirmed; 22 September — Erdoğan at the UN; 1 OCTOBER — THE ASSEMBLY OPENS (the walkout); 4 October 2026 — the state of this page — the state's and the opposition's readings of every step both stated (LAW 2) |
| Current issues | The opposition in the courts and the streets — İmamoğlu's two trials (the main since 9 March 2026, the espionage with the 23 December hearing) and his barred candidacy (the diploma), the CHP's court-ordered leadership and the Yeni Parti's 91 (the Court of Cassation's pending appeal the hinge), the 20-plus jailed mayors, the immunity files, the 2028 question (the renewal vote and Erdoğan's candidacy); the economy of the 37% rate and the 31.51% inflation — the lira at 49, the hunger line above the minimum wage, the September 2026 fund-liquidation probe that sank the BIST 100 by 12% in a month, the 2027 budget due by 17 October and the Medium-Term Program's 28.4% inflation target for the year's end, the Iran war's US$55 billion of reserves spent and rebuilt, the energy bill of US$71 billion; THE PKK PROCESS's second phase (the law in force, the applications, the National Security Council's report awaited, Öcalan's status, Demirtaş's cell); the foreign files — the F-35 and the CAATSA (promised, not lifted), the Gaza force, the Netanyahu warrant, Syria's north, the Armenia border, Cyprus, the EU's customs union, COP31 of November; the earthquake's rebuilding (455,357 units delivered, the 570,000 target); the demographic turn (1.42 births; the brain drain); the stray dogs, the women's murders, the press (RSF 159th), the new constitution ("the ideal period" of 1 October 2026) — the government's "stability and the Century of Türkiye" and the opposition's "the ballot box, the courts and the bread" readings both stated (LAW 2) |
Economy
| GDP (nominal) | US$1.59 trillion for 2025 by TÜİK's count of 2 March 2026 (₺63 trillion; US$18,040 a head) and US$1,597.3 billion by the IMF's World Economic Outlook of April 2026 (US$18,611 a head; US$1,640 billion projected for 2026 — both stated) — the 16th economy of the world by the IMF's 2026 list (17th by other years' counts), the first of the Middle East's by the common line and Europe's seventh if counted there; the upper-middle-income class of the World Bank (the US$13,000 line passed and repassed by the lira's swings); the services about 55% of the output (the trade, the transport, the finance, the tourism), the industry about 25% (the manufacturing 22% — the automotive, the textiles, the steel, the white goods, the defense), the construction 5–6%, the agriculture 6% by the shares; TÜİK's US$1.36 trillion for 2024 and the US$1.8 trillion target for the end of 2026 by the Medium-Term Program (US$2.2 trillion by 2029, US$25,000 a head) — the lira's rate the measure's maker; the Istanbul region about 30% of the output; the informal economy about 25–30% by the counts |
|---|---|
| GDP (PPP) | US$3,785.7 billion for 2025 by the IMF's April 2026 count (US$44,110 a head; US$4,025 billion and US$46,672 projected for 2026) — the 11th–13th economy of the world by purchasing power on the lists (behind Russia, Japan, Germany, Indonesia and Brazil, about level with Italy, Mexico and France by the years); the run — the 5% a year of 2002–07's "AKP miracle" (the EU anchor, the IMF program of 2001, the privatizations), the −4.8% of 2009, the 8.4% of 2010 and 11.2% of 2011, the 7.5% of 2017 (the credit guarantee fund), the 2018 currency crisis (3.0%, then 0.8% in 2019), the pandemic's 1.9% of 2020 (among the few positives), the 11.4% of 2021 (the lira's crash and the exports), the 5.5% of 2022, the 5.1% of 2023 (the quake year), the 3.2% of 2024 (3.0 by the IMF's line), the 3.6% of 2025, the 2.6% and 2.3% of 2026's first two quarters — the "rational ground" of Şimşek's cooling; the GDP a head in dollars from US$12,600 in 2013 to US$8,600 in 2020 and US$18,040 in 2025 by the lira's swings; the IMF's 3.4% for 2026 and 3.5% for 2027 against the Medium-Term Program's 3.3% and 4.2% — both stated |
| Growth and inflation | Growth 3.6% in 2025 by TÜİK (the fourth quarter 3.4%; the agriculture −8.8% in the drought and frost year, the construction +10.8% of the quake rebuilding, the industry +2.9%, the household consumption +4.1%) after 3.2% in 2024 and 5.1% in 2023; 2.6% in the first quarter of 2026 (revised from 2.5%; the exports −12.7% in the Iran war's quarter) and 2.3% in the second (31 August 2026; the agriculture +13.3% on the recovered harvest, the construction −1.9%, the exports −3.4%); 3.3% for 2026 by the Medium-Term Program of 6 September 2026 (cut from 3.8%) and 3.4% by the IMF (cut from 4.2% in April on the energy costs) — both stated; 4.2% for 2027, 4.6% for 2028 and 5.0% for 2029 by the Program; inflation 31.51% in August 2026 by TÜİK (1.84% in the month; 31.75% in July, 32.11% in June, 32.61% in May, 32.37% in April, 30.87% in March, 31.53% in February, 30.65% in January — "the lowest in 50 months"; 30.89% in December 2025; the peaks of 85.5% in October 2022 and 75.45% in May 2024) with the ENAG independent group's 49.03% — both stated (LAW 2); the September print due on 5 October 2026 (the consensus about 30%); the housing +39.8%, the transport +35.1%, the food +33.8% in the August year; the Central Bank's forecast 28% for the end of 2026, 15% for 2027, 9% for 2028 and the 5% target; the unemployment 7.8% (August 2026) |
| Monetary policy and the lira | The Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (TCMB; 1930 at Ankara; Governor Fatih Karahan since 3 February 2024 after Hafize Gaye Erkan's resignation — the Erdoğan appointees' run of Murat Çetinkaya, Murat Uysal, Naci Ağbal (sacked in March 2021 after a hike) and Şahap Kavcıoğlu (the cutter of 2021–23)) — the policy rate 37% since 23 January 2026 (the one-week repo; the 100-point cut of 22 January from 38%), held at the five meetings of 12 March (the Iran war; the repo auctions suspended — a 300-point tightening by the back door by Goldman's line), 22 April, 11 June, 23 July and 10 September 2026 (the next 22 October; the overnight corridor 35.5–40%); the path — the 8.5% of February 2023 at the end of the "Erdoganomics" cuts (19% in March 2021 to 14% in December 2021 and 9% in November 2022 — the lira's crash of December 2021), the hikes from 15% (June 2023) to 50% (March 2024), the cuts to 45% (January 2025) and 42.5% (March), the emergency hike to 46% of 18 April 2025 after the İmamoğlu shock (the US$50 billion of reserves sold in a week by the counts), the cuts of 25 July (43%), 12 September (40.5%), 24 October (39.5%), 12 December 2025 (38%) and 22 January 2026; the lira about 49 to the dollar (the Bank's 48.97/49.06 of 2 October 2026; the record low 49.14 on the free market — 17.9% down in a year; 41.6 on 2 October 2025, 42.96 at the end of 2025, 35.3 at the start, 29.5 at the end of 2023, 18.7 of 2022, 13.3 of 2021, 1.5 of 2010) and about 55 to the euro (55.08/55.18); the reserves US$171.2 billion on 25 September 2026 (the gross; the net US$53.4 billion, US$39.9 billion without the swaps — the record US$218.2 billion of 30 January 2026 before the war's US$55 billion of defense and the rebuild to US$184.2 billion by 4 September); the FX-protected deposits (KKM) of 2021–25 wound down; the "managed float" by the Bank's name and the "crawling peg" by the economists' — both stated (LAW 2); the inflation targeting of 5% since 2006 never met |
| Public finances | The 2026 central government budget (presented on 16 October 2025 by Vice President Yılmaz; passed in December) — expenditure ₺18.928 trillion (about US$452 billion), revenue ₺16.216 trillion, the deficit ₺2.712 trillion (3.5% of the ₺77 trillion GDP assumed; 3.1% by the September 2026 revision), the interest ₺2.741 trillion (+40.6%), the personnel ₺5.5 trillion, the education ₺2.9 trillion, the defense and security ₺2.16 trillion, the earthquake allocation ₺653 billion (about US$15 billion); the 2025 outturn — the deficit ₺1.8 trillion (2.9% of GDP; the revenue ₺12.83 trillion, the expenditure ₺14.63 trillion, the interest ₺2.05 trillion) with the first primary surplus since 2022 (₺255 billion); THE 2027 BUDGET BILL due to the Assembly by 17 October 2026 on the Medium-Term Program of 6 September 2026 (the growth 3.3% for 2026 and 4.2% for 2027, the inflation 28.4% at the end of 2026 and 21% at 2027's, the deficit 3.1% of GDP falling to 2.8% by 2029, the current account deficit 2.6%, the unemployment 8.1%, the exports US$450 billion and the GDP US$2.2 trillion by 2029); the public debt 23.7% of GDP by the EU definition (₺14.97 trillion, US$307 billion, 2025) — among Europe's lowest ratios; the taxes — the 20% VAT (the 2023 rise from 18%), the income tax to 40%, the corporate 25% (cut to 12.5% for the pure manufacturers and farmers from 2027 by the law of 21 May 2026), the special consumption taxes of the cars, the fuel and the tobacco (a third of the revenue), the earthquake tax of 1999 that stayed; the Eurobonds (US$3.5 billion of 8 January 2026 at 6.35–6.9%); the ratings — Moody's Ba3 (25 July 2025), Fitch BB− stable (the positive outlook of January 2026 withdrawn on 10 April after the war's interventions; affirmed July), S&P BB− stable (April 2026; the next review 16 October) — "the upgrades' path" of the Treasury and "the junk" of the critics both stated (LAW 2); the 3.6 trillion lira (US$91.5 billion) of earthquake spending of 2023–25 |
| Structure and labor | Services about 55%, industry about 25% (the manufacturing 22%), construction 5–6% and agriculture 6% of the output by the shares; the labor force 35.5 million (2025) with 32.5 million employed — the services 59%, the industry 20%, the agriculture 14% (the 1950s' 80% the memory), the construction 7%; the unemployment 7.8% in August 2026 (2.74 million; 8.1% in July; the record low 7.7% of December 2025) with the youth 13.0%, the women 10.1% and the men 6.6%; the broad underutilization (the discouraged and the part-time added) 30.6% in July 2026 and 29.7% for 2025 — "the lowest unemployment since 2005" of the state and "the 10 million hidden jobless" of DİSK both stated (LAW 2); the participation 52.5% (the women's about 36% — the Arab world's and Europe's low end); the informal work about 25% of the employed by the counts (a third of the farms' and the small shops'); the public sector's 5.4 million (2026 — the 3.58 million civil servants, the teachers, the police, the health staff; the 2016–18 purge's 150,000 dismissals the other side); the minimum wage ₺28,075 net for 2026 (the 27% rise of 23 December 2025; 7–9.5 million earners — about half of the 16.2 million paid employees; the Türk-İş hunger line of ₺37,801 above it in September 2026), the pensioners 17.7 million (the EYT's 2.3 million of 2023; the minimum pension ₺23,552 from July 2026), the civil servants' 18.6% rise of January 2026; the unions — Türk-İş (1952), Hak-İş, DİSK (1967); the Syrians' 1 million at work by the counts (the work-permit easing of June 2026); the emigration of the skilled the labor market's leak; the retirement at 65 for men and 63 for women after 7,200 days |
| Trade | Exports US$273.4 billion in 2025 (+4.5%; the December record of US$26.4 billion) and imports US$365.5 billion (+6.3%), the deficit US$92.1 billion — the Trade Ministry's count of 4 January 2026; the first nine months of 2026 US$211 billion of exports (+5.2%; September's US$26.0 billion +15.4%) against about US$282 billion of imports, the annualized goods exports US$283.7 billion the record and the services US$125.4 billion beside them (the tourism, the transport); the products — the automotive US$41.5 billion (2025; Ford Otosan, Tofaş, Oyak Renault, Toyota, Hyundai, the TEMSA buses), the chemicals US$31.9 billion, the electrical and electronics US$17.7 billion (the Arçelik-Beko white goods — Europe's largest maker by the count), the steel (38.1 million metric tons of 2025, the world's seventh), the textiles and clothing (the Zara and H&M supplier of US$30 billion by the counts), the machinery, the defense (US$10.56 billion of 2025), the hazelnuts, the dried fruit, the jewelry; the partners — Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Iraq, France and Spain the export markets (the EU about 40%), China, Russia (the energy and the US$3.7 billion of December's imports), Germany, the United States and Switzerland (the gold) the sources; the energy bill about US$70 billion a year (US$71 billion for 2026 by the Program); the customs union with the EU of 31 December 1995 (the modernization talk of 2026 "largely symbolic" by the analysts' line); the current account deficit US$25.2 billion for 2025 by the Treasury's note (US$30.2 billion after the Bank's revision of the interest line — both stated; 1.6% of GDP by Şimşek's line), the July 2026 surplus of US$36 million the first in nine months; the free zones, the Istanbul gold trade, the Russian and Iranian sanctions files (the Golden Global Bank of September 2026) |
| Agriculture | About 6% of the output and 14% of the jobs — the world's first in hazelnuts (about 70% of the supply; the Black Sea's Ordu and Giresun; the 2025 crop cut to about 518,000 metric tons by the April frost, the 2026 crop about 805,000 by the August estimate; Ferrero's buyer), apricots (Malatya's 20% of the world; the dried apricot's 80%), figs (Aydın's 28%), cherries (28%), quinces, poppy seeds; the second in watermelons and cucumbers, the top five in tea (Rize's 1.3 million tons of leaf — the ÇAYKUR monopoly's heritage), olives (the 190 million trees of the Aegean; the olive oil's second-to-fourth place by the year), tomatoes, grapes (the Sultana raisins of Manisa), lemons, chickpeas and lentils, apples (Isparta), pistachios (Gaziantep's baklava), the wheat of the plateau (about 20 million tons in a normal year; the 2025 drought's imports), the cotton of Çukurova and the Aegean, the sugar beet, the sunflower of Thrace, the roses of Isparta, the tobacco of the Aegean; the livestock — the sheep (about 45 million; the Kurban's), the cattle (17 million; the milk of the 2020s' imports of heifers), the Angora goats, the poultry (the chicken exports to Iraq), the beekeeping (the second in honey by the count; the Black Sea's mad honey), the fisheries and the aquaculture (the sea bass and bream of the Aegean farms — Europe's first), the Black Sea anchovy; the GAP's 1.8 million hectares of irrigation (the half reached), the DSİ's dams, the Konya plain's sinkholes of the over-pumped wells, the 2023–25 drought (the −8.8% of 2025), the April 2025 frost's hazelnut and apricot losses; the TMO grain office (1938), the agricultural credit cooperatives, the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry's support of ₺130 billion-odd a year; the farmers' average age 55 and the villages' emptying; the GMO ban; the food inflation of 33.8% (August 2026) the household's measure |
| Industry | Manufacturing about 22% of GDP — the automotive (1.42 million vehicles made in 2025 at Bursa's Tofaş and Oyak Renault, Kocaeli's Ford Otosan and Hyundai, Sakarya's Toyota; US$41.5 billion of exports; the Togg national electric car of 2023 — 39,020 sold in 2025, the EV market's first above Tesla and BYD; the BYD plant of Manisa under construction by the 2024 deal), the white goods (Arçelik-Beko, Vestel — Europe's largest producer by the count), the steel (38.1 million metric tons in 2025 — the world's seventh ahead of Germany; Erdemir, İsdemir, the Marmara and İskenderun mills), the textiles and clothing of Istanbul, Bursa, Denizli and Kahramanmaraş (the 1 million jobs; the Inditex and H&M supplier), the chemicals and the plastics (Petkim of Aliağa; the STAR refinery of SOCAR of 2018), the cement (the world's top five), the glass (Şişecam — the world's second), the ceramics and tiles (Kütahya, Eskişehir), the furniture (Kayseri, İnegöl), the food (Ülker, the pasta of the Mediterranean's second exporter), THE DEFENSE INDUSTRY (US$10.56 billion of exports in 2025, +49%; Baykar's TB2 and Akıncı drones to 35 countries, ASELSAN's radars, TUSAŞ's KAAN and Hürjet, Roketsan, MKE, the Altay tank, the MİLGEM ships for Pakistan and Ukraine, the Istanbul shipyards; the Teknofest of the young), the shipbuilding of Tuzla and Yalova (the yachts' top five), the electronics (Vestel's TVs), the pharmaceuticals (Abdi İbrahim), the aviation (TUSAŞ's Airbus and Boeing parts), the jewelry of the Grand Bazaar; the organized industrial zones (OSB) of 350-odd; the Istanbul–Kocaeli–Bursa triangle half of the industry, the "Anatolian tigers" of Kayseri, Gaziantep, Denizli and Konya; the holdings — Koç (Ford, Tofaş, Arçelik, Tüpraş, Yapı Kredi), Sabancı (Akbank, Enerjisa), Eczacıbaşı, Doğuş, Kalyon, Limak, Cengiz, Kolin and MNG of the public works ("the five" of the opposition's lists); the industrial output's +2.9% of 2025 and −0.8% of the first quarter of 2026 |
| Tourism | 63.94 million visitors in 2025 (52.78 million foreign and 11.2 million citizens abroad; the record) and US$65.23 billion of income (+6.8%; the per-visitor US$1,020 and the per-night US$100-odd) by the ministry's counts of 30 January 2026 — the fourth most-visited country of the world by UN Tourism's line (after France, Spain and the United States); the Russians 6.9 million, the Germans 6.75 million, the British 4.27 million, the Bulgarians, the Iranians, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Dutch, the Saudis and the Chinese of the 2020s; Istanbul 18.97 million foreign visitors (36%) and Antalya 17-odd million (the Russians' and Germans' coast), Edirne's Bulgarians, Muğla's Bodrum and Marmaris, Cappadocia's balloons (the 150 flights at dawn; 700,000-plus passengers a year), İzmir and Ephesus, Pamukkale, Trabzon's Sümela and the Gulf visitors of Uzungöl, the Gallipoli pilgrims, the Lycian Way; the first eight months of 2026 — 34.83 million foreign arrivals (−1.8%; the Iran war's spring, the heat, the prices in euros the complaint), the first half's income US$25.75 billion (−0.1%); the Program's US$65 billion for 2026; the all-inclusive hotels of the 1990s (the 2 million beds), the medical tourism (the hair transplants and the dentistry — about 1.5 million patients), the cruise port of Galataport (2021), the Istanbul Airport's hub; the 580 Blue Flag beaches, the 22 World Heritage sites, Göbekli Tepe's million; the 2015–16 terror years' collapse (25 million) and the pandemic's 16 million of 2020 the dips; Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy (the hotelier of ETS); the tourism about 10% of GDP with the indirect and 2 million jobs |
| Energy | The electricity of 126,944 MW of installed capacity at the end of August 2026 — the renewables 62.9% of it (79,902 MW: the hydro 32 GW of the dams, the solar 27,914 MW of the 2020s' boom, the wind 15,434 MW, the geothermal 1.7 GW — Europe's first — and the biomass), the gas plants, the coal plants (the lignite of Afşin-Elbistan, Soma, Yatağan and the imported-coal plants of Çanakkale and İskenderun); the generation of 2025 — the coal 34% (121 TWh; two-thirds of it imported coal, Russia the first supplier), the gas 22%, the hydro about 20%, the wind 11.1%, the solar 10.5% (the wind and solar past the hydro for the first time; the renewables 43%); THE AKKUYU NUCLEAR PLANT of Rosatom at Mersin (the 4 × 1,200 MW VVERs; the first unit in pre-commissioning for the start-up by the end of 2026 by the ministry's and Rosatom's lines — the US$24–25 billion plant of the 2010 agreement, the Russian financing's US$9 billion of 2026; the Sinop and Thrace plants the talk); the gas — the imports of about 50 billion m³ (Russia's TurkStream of 2020 and the Blue Stream, Azerbaijan's TANAP of 2018, Iran, the LNG of the United States, Algeria, Qatar and Nigeria; the 22 bcm Gazprom contracts of 2026's end extended a year), the Sakarya field's 9.5 million m³ a day and the Osman Gazi platform's 20 million of late 2026 (the 710 bcm reserve; 6.7 bcm pumped since 2023); the oil of 180,000 barrels a day (the Gabar's 80,000; the imports of 1 million; the Tüpraş refineries of İzmit, İzmir, Kırıkkale and Batman; the STAR of Aliağa; the BTC pipeline of 2006 and the Kirkuk–Ceyhan line reopened in September 2025), the energy bill of US$70-odd billion a year (US$71 billion for 2026); the fuel prices reset with every lira move (the special consumption tax about half the pump price); the BOTAŞ gas monopoly's subsidized households, the EPDK regulator, the privatized grids of 2010–13; the gas hub ambition of 2023, the ELMED-type links to Europe absent — the TurkStream's and the TANAP's transit; the solar panels' factories of Ankara (the Kalyon plant); the Iran war's oil shock of spring 2026 the year's energy story |
| Banks and markets | The Central Bank (1930) and the BDDK regulator (2000); the banks — the state's Ziraat (1863; the largest by assets), Halkbank (the U.S. Iran-sanctions case of 2019–26 ended by the Justice Department's deal of 10 March 2026 without penalties), VakıfBank, the private İş Bankası (1924; Atatürk's bank with the CHP's shares), Garanti BBVA (the Spanish 86%), Akbank (Sabancı), Yapı Kredi (Koç), QNB Finansbank, DenizBank (Emirates NBD), the participation (Islamic) banks of about 9% (Kuveyt Türk, Albaraka, the state's Ziraat Katılım), the Golden Global Bank of the U.S. sanction of 4 September 2026; the Borsa Istanbul (the BİST of 2013 from the ISE of 1986) — the BIST 100 at 12,270 on 2 October 2026 after the record 15,205 of May 2026 (the 12% fall of September in the investment-fund liquidation probe — Astor's Feridun Geçgel the name of the record; the state's "the manipulators" and the market's "the panic" both stated, LAW 2; +13% in a year); the Treasury's bonds at the 30%-odd yields, the Eurobonds (the US$3.5 billion of January 2026, the 7- and 12-year deal of the autumn), the sukuk; the credit cards' ₺2 trillion of debt and the consumer loans' limits of 2023–26; the KKM protected deposits of December 2021 (the ₺3.4 trillion peak) ended; the gold of the mattresses (the 5,000 metric tons of the Turks' homes by the claim; the Bank's 109.6 billion dollars of gold in the reserves); the deposit dollarization of about 40%; the SPK regulator; the crypto exchanges' 2024 law; the Islamic finance center of Istanbul's ambition; the ratings Ba3/BB−/BB−; the state's "the normalization" and the opposition's "the 20% that holds the deposits" both stated |
| Infrastructure projects | The "Century of Türkiye" list — the Istanbul Airport (29 October 2018; 84.44 million passengers in 2025, Europe's second behind Heathrow by 40,000; the 200 million capacity of the plan), the 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (18 March 2022; the world's longest suspension span at 2,023 m), the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (2016) and the Northern Marmara Motorway, the Osmangazi Bridge (2016) of the İzmir motorway, the Eurasia Tunnel (2016) and the Marmaray (2013/2019) under the Bosphorus, the high-speed rail (the Ankara–İzmir line of 624 km due in 2027 by the tentative line; the Ankara–Sivas of 2023; the 27 provinces of YHT by 2028 of the minister's September 2026 promise; the 2,769 km of high-speed track targeted for 2026), the Istanbul metro's 402.6 km of rail in operation and the 717 km of the 2050 plan, the Istanbul Canal (the 45 km of 2021's foundation; "not on the agenda" by the minister's 2025 line; the US$15–20 billion), the Akkuyu plant (2026), the Sakarya gas's Osman Gazi platform (late 2026), the Development Road of Basra to Europe (the 1,200 km of rail and road; the 2028–30 phases), the Zangezur route's Kars–Dilucu railway (224 km), the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (2017), the TANAP and TurkStream, the earthquake region's 455,357 units delivered (August 2026) of the 570,000, the 500,000 social housing of October 2025, the city hospitals, the Çukurova airport (2024), the Rize-Artvin airport on the sea (2022), the Filyos port, the Ordu-Giresun airport, the Yusufeli dam (2022; the country's tallest at 275 m), the Ilısu dam, the solar fields of Konya's Karapınar (1.35 GW — Europe's largest by the count) and the wind of the Aegean, the 5G of April 2026, the Teknofest; the PPP guarantees' bill (the bridges and the hospitals' dollar-indexed payments — the state's "built without the budget" and the opposition's "the garanti" both stated, LAW 2) |
| Poverty and inequality | The at-risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion rate 27.9% of the people in 2025 and 36.8% of the children (TÜİK's child statistics of 2026) — the 60%-of-median poverty rate about 13–14% by the SILC's line; Gini 0.410 (2025; 0.413 in 2024; 0.473 before the social transfers) — the top 20%'s 48% of the income against the bottom 20%'s 6.4% (the 7.5 ratio); the Türk-İş lines of September 2026 — the hunger line ₺37,801 (US$771) for a family of four and the poverty line ₺123,130 (US$2,512), the single worker's ₺48,885 — against the minimum wage of ₺28,075 (US$573) that about half the paid employees earn and the minimum pension of ₺23,552 (US$481): the "minimum wage below the hunger line" of the unions and the "the real rise of 2024–26" of the government both stated (LAW 2); the food inflation 33.8% and the rents' 41% rise (Istanbul, late 2025); the regional gap — Istanbul's and the Marmara's income twice the southeast's (Şırnak, Hakkari, Van, Ağrı the poorest provinces by the counts; the Kurdish question's economic face); the social assistance (the Family Ministry's ₺150 billion-odd; the "Aile Destek" cash of 2022–26 to 3.7 million households, the free coal, the conditional cash for the schools), the pensions of 17.7 million (the EYT's addition), the health coverage of 97%; the earthquake's 3.6 million displaced and the containers' last families; the Syrians' and the Afghans' poverty; the homeless few by the family's cushion; the brain drain of the educated; the HDI 0.853 (45th) against the Gini's 0.41 — the "very high development" and the "unequal" lines both stated |
| Economic history in brief | The Ottoman capitulations and the Public Debt Administration of 1881 (the Düyun-u Umumiye of the bankrupt empire), the republic's étatism of the 1930s (Sümerbank 1933, Etibank 1935, the five-year plan of 1934 — the Soviet loans' factories), the Marshall Plan and the Menderes boom and bust of the 1950s (the first IMF stabilization of 1958), the import-substitution of the 1960s–70s planning (the DPT of 1960, the Tofaş and Renault plants, the Gastarbeiter remittances), the crisis of 1977–80 and the 24 January 1980 decisions of Özal (the export turn, the liberalization under the coup), the 1994 crisis (the lira's 60% fall), the 2001 crisis of 21 February (the Sezer–Ecevit quarrel, the dollar at 1,500,000 old lira, the IMF's US$11.4 billion and Kemal Derviş's reforms — the Central Bank's independence of 2001, the BDDK), the AKP's 2002–07 boom (the EU anchor, the FDI, the privatizations, the redenomination of 1 January 2005), the 2008–09 crisis survived (−4.8% then 11%), the 2013 Gezi summer and the Fed taper's lira, the 2016 coup attempt's shock, the 2018 currency crisis (the Brunson sanctions, the lira from 3.8 to 7 in August; the rate to 24%), the 2019–21 "Erdoganomics" (the son-in-law Albayrak's Treasury, the US$128 billion of reserves sold, the cuts to 8.5% and the lira's crash of December 2021 to 18, the 85.5% inflation of October 2022, the KKM), the 2023 turn (Şimşek's return on 3 June 2023, the hikes to 50%, the earthquake's US$100 billion bill, the Moody's and Fitch upgrades of 2024–25), the 2025 İmamoğlu shock (the US$50 billion week; the hike to 46%), the 2026 Iran war's oil and reserves, the 37% rate and the 31.5% inflation of the autumn — the government's "the program is working" and the opposition's "the lost decade of the wage" both stated (LAW 2) |
Transport
| Roads | 68,517 km of roads under the General Directorate of Highways (KGM) on 1 January 2026 — 3,796 km of motorways (otoyol; the tolled O-roads of the Istanbul–Ankara O-4 of 1990–93, the Istanbul–İzmir of 2019 with the Osmangazi Bridge, the Northern Marmara of 2016–21 with the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, the Ankara–Niğde of 2020, the Malkara–Çanakkale with the 1915 bridge, the Aydın–Denizli, the Antalya–Alanya of 2026's works), 30,789 km of state roads (the D-roads — the D-100 of Edirne to the Iranian line the old spine, the D-400 of the south coast, the D-010 of the Black Sea coast) and 33,932 km of provincial roads, the villages' 300,000 km beside them; the 32 million vehicles (16 million cars; the Tofaş, Renault, Fiat and Toyota of the roads; the Togg electric; the 2025 EV share 17.7%), the right-hand traffic, the limits of 50 km/h in the towns, 90 on the roads and 120 on the motorways (140 on the designated sections by the 2024 regulation), the HGS toll stickers, the gasoline price half tax (the special consumption tax and the VAT); the road deaths about 6,000 a year by the counts (the Bayram migrations' toll); the intercity buses of Kamil Koç, Metro and Pamukkale from Istanbul's Esenler and Ankara's AŞTİ terminals (the 24-hour network the rail never matched), the dolmuş minibuses of the towns, the yellow taxis of Istanbul (the 20,000 plates' quarrel), the Istanbul traffic of the 5 million vehicles and the bridges' queues; the Bolu Mountain tunnel (2007), the Ovit tunnel (2018; 14.3 km), the Zigana (2023; 14.5 km — Europe's longest twin-tube by the claim); the KGM of 1950 the Marshall Plan's child |
|---|---|
| Rail | The Turkish State Railways (TCDD; 1927 under the name of 1924) on 14,275 km of line (October 2025; 14,437 km targeted for 2026 — about 7,100 km electrified, the 2,250 km of high-speed line and the 2,769 targeted) — the YHT high-speed trains (the Ankara–Eskişehir of 13 March 2009, Ankara–Konya of 2011, Ankara–Istanbul of 25 July 2014 (the 4 hours via Pendik, then the Söğütlüçeşme of 2019 by the Marmaray), Konya–Istanbul, Ankara–Sivas of 26 April 2023 (the 2-hour run), the Ankara–İzmir of 624 km due 2027 by the tentative line, the Ankara–Bursa, the Mersin–Adana–Gaziantep and the Kayseri lines of the works; the 250 km/h Siemens Velaro and the CAF sets, the national train of TÜRASAŞ), the conventional lines of the Ottoman Anatolian and Baghdad railways (the Haydarpaşa station of 1908 closed since 2013 for the works; the Sirkeci of the Orient Express of 1890), the Eastern Express of Ankara–Kars (the Instagram train of the winters), the Lake Van train ferry to Tatvan and the Tehran line, the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (2017) and the Kapıköy gate to Iran, the Marmaray tunnel under the Bosphorus (29 October 2013; the Halkalı–Gebze 76.6 km of 12 March 2019 — the rail link of the continents; the 13.6 km of tube at 60 m), the Istanbul and Ankara suburban lines (the Başkentray), the İzmir İZBAN (2010), the Kars–Dilucu line under construction toward Nakhchivan (224 km), the Development Road's rail; the freight of the China–Türkiye "Middle Corridor" trains via Baku; the TCDD's reform of 2013 that opened the tracks; the rail's 5% share of the passengers and the trucks' 90% of the freight the imbalance |
| Istanbul transit | The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's (İBB; Mayor İmamoğlu jailed since March 2025, the interim Nuri Aslan) Metro Istanbul of 402.6 km of rail systems in operation (October 2026) — the metro lines of the M1 (1989) to the M11 (the airport line of 2023 — the 120 km/h to Istanbul Airport), the M2 of Yenikapı–Hacıosman, the M4 to Sabiha Gökçen (2022), the Marmaray under the Bosphorus (the Halkalı–Gebze commuter line of 76.6 km), the T1 tram of Kabataş–Bağcılar through Sultanahmet, the nostalgic trams of İstiklal and Kadıköy, the F1 funicular and the Tünel of 1875 (the world's second-oldest underground), the Metrobüs BRT of 52 km (2007; the 1 million a day of the crush), the İETT buses (the 3,000 of the yellow and the red), the ferries of the Şehir Hatları since 1851 (Eminönü–Kadıköy, the Bosphorus line, the Princes' Islands; the simit and the çay on deck), the İDO sea buses of the Marmara, the 65 km under construction and the 717 km of the 2050 plan; the Istanbulkart of 2009; the three Bosphorus bridges (1973, 1988, 2016), the Eurasia Tunnel of 2016 for the cars, the Golden Horn's Galata (1994) and Haliç metro bridges; the traffic of the 5 million vehicles and the TomTom's top ranks of the jammed cities; the taxis' 20,000 plates and the apps (BiTaksi, Uber's return of 2022); the Istanbul Airport's M11 and the Havaist buses; the pedestrians of İstiklal's 3 million a day, the Galataport's cruise crowds; the Mayor's "the 1,000 km of rail" promise and the state's "the municipality's debt" both stated (LAW 2) |
| Air | Istanbul Airport (29 October 2018 at Arnavutköy; the main terminal of 1.4 million m²; 84.44 million passengers in 2025 — Europe's second to Heathrow by 40,000, the world's top ten; the 200 million of the final plan; the three runways in parallel use), Sabiha Gökçen (2001; 48.42 million in 2025 — the Asian side's low-cost hub of Pegasus), the two Istanbul airports' 132 million; Ankara Esenboğa (1955; about 15 million), İzmir Adnan Menderes, Antalya (39.16 million; the charter record of the Russians and Germans; the new terminal of 2025), Dalaman, Milas-Bodrum, Trabzon, Adana's Çukurova (2024), Gaziantep, Diyarbakır, Van, Erzurum, Kayseri, Nevşehir-Kapadokya, Rize-Artvin (2022; on the sea), Ordu-Giresun (2015; on the sea), Hatay (the quake's runway of 2023) — the 58 airports of the DHMİ with the 247.16 million passengers of 2025 (the record); Turkish Airlines (THY; 1933; the state's 49%) — 92.6 million passengers in 2025, the 563 aircraft of August 2026, the 358 destinations in 133 countries (the most countries of any airline by the claim), the Star Alliance, the Istanbul hub of the Africa and Asia connections, the A350s and 787s, the 2023 order of 355 Airbus jets and the Boeing talks; Pegasus (1990; the low-cost of Sabiha Gökçen), AJet (2024; THY's low-cost of Esenboğa), SunExpress (the Lufthansa joint venture of Antalya); the DHMİ authority (1933) and the air-traffic; the TUSAŞ's Hürjet and the Gökbey helicopter; the Teknofest's air shows; the Çanakkale bridge's and the airport's "Century" the state's showcase |
| Ports and waterways | The Turkish Straits — the Bosphorus (31 km; 700 m at the narrowest; 40,172 ships in 2025) and the Dardanelles (61 km; 44,468) under the Montreux Convention of 20 July 1936 (the free merchant passage, the warships' limits — the closure of February 2022 to the war's navies by Article 19), the tanker traffic of the Caspian and Russian oil, the pilots and the radar of the 1994 Nassia fire's lessons; the ports — Ambarlı (Istanbul's container port; the world's 72nd of 2024), Kocaeli's İzmit bay (the 86th; the Ford and Hyundai cars' ro-ro, the Tüpraş tankers), Aliağa (the 91st; the STAR and Petkim), Tekirdağ's Asyaport (the 94th), Mersin (the 98th; the Mediterranean's gate of the GAP), Haydarpaşa, Samsun, Trabzon, Ceyhan (the BTC oil terminal of 1.2 million barrels a day), İskenderun (the quake-hit port of 2023), Filyos (the new Black Sea port of 2021), Çandarlı (the planned), the 11.4 million TEU of the five top-100 ports (84% of the container trade); the Galataport cruise terminal (2021; 1.5 million passengers), the Kuşadası and Bodrum cruise calls; the ferries — the Istanbul city lines, the İDO of the Marmara to Bursa's Mudanya and Yalova, the Çanakkale–Eceabat and the Gökçeada lines, the Lake Van train ferry, the Bosphorus tours; the Çanakkale and the three Bosphorus bridges' spans across the waters; the rivers unnavigable (the Euphrates's dam lakes' boats); the Black Sea's Sinop and Samsun; the Istanbul Canal's 45 km the dormant plan; the exclusive economic zone of the eastern Mediterranean's "Blue Homeland" and the 2019 Libya deal — both lines stated (LAW 2); the 12,000 fishing boats and the anchovy of the Black Sea |
| Energy and utilities | The electricity of the TEİAŞ grid (126,944 MW of capacity at August 2026; the 99.9% electrification; the 21 private distribution regions of the 2010–13 privatizations — the Enerjisa, Limak and CK; the EPDK's tariffs; the household price among Europe's lowest in euros by the subsidy, the blackouts rare — the national cut of 31 March 2015 the memory), the gas network of BOTAŞ to the 81 provinces (the 20 million subscribers; the household subsidy's ₺300 billion-odd of 2022–25; the storage of Silivri and Tuz Gölü's salt caverns), the water of the municipalities (İSKİ of Istanbul with the Melen line from the Black Sea and the Ömerli dam; the ASKİ of Ankara; the DSİ's dams; the drought's cuts of 2023–25 in İzmir and Bursa), the sewerage of the big cities' 90% and the villages', the waste of the İBB's 20,000 tons a day (the Odayeri and Seymen landfills; the 2024 Istanbul recycling), the Red Crescent's water tankers of the quake; the telecoms — Turkcell (1994; 40 million lines), Türk Telekom (the privatized PTT of 2005; the fiber), Vodafone Türkiye (2006), the 5G of 1 April 2026 after the auction of 16 October 2025 (US$2.95 billion before VAT), the 4.5G of 2016, the 88% online, the BTK regulator and the blocking orders (the X slowdowns of the crisis days), the Türksat satellites (the 6A of 2024 — the first domestic), the PTT (1840); the postal codes of five digits; the Teknopark Istanbul; the Akkuyu plant's 10% of the electricity from 2027 by the plan |
| Border crossings and bridges | The land gates — with Bulgaria: Kapıkule (Edirne; the busiest of Europe's lorry gates — the 6,000 trucks a day and the summer queues of the diaspora's cars), Hamzabeyli, Dereköy; with Greece: İpsala (the Meriç bridge) and Pazarkule (Kastanies; the February–March 2020 migrant crowds); with Georgia: Sarp (the Black Sea gate; the Batumi shoppers), Türkgözü, Aktaş; with Armenia: the Akyaka rail gate and Alican closed since April 1993 (the opening's 2022–26 talks; the third-country citizens' passage of 2023 tried; the Kars–Dilucu line); with Azerbaijan: Dilucu (Iğdır–Nakhchivan; the 1992 "Hope Bridge" over the Aras); with Iran: Gürbulak (Ağrı; the Bazargan gate of the lorries and the 2021 fence), Kapıköy (Van; the rail), Esendere; with Iraq: Habur (Şırnak; the Kurdistan Region's trade of US$10 billion a year by the counts — the Silopi queues), the planned Ovaköy; with Syria: Cilvegözü (Hatay–Bab al-Hawa; the aid gate of the war), Öncüpınar (Kilis–Bab al-Salam), Yayladağı, Karkamış, Akçakale, Ceylanpınar, Nusaybin (the Qamishli gate reopened in 2025 by the post-Assad line) — the 2015 wall of 911 km the border's face; the Northern Cyprus ferries of Taşucu–Girne; THE BRIDGES — the 1915 Çanakkale (2022; 2,023 m span, the world's longest), the Yavuz Sultan Selim (2016; 1,408 m), the Fatih Sultan Mehmet (1988; 1,090 m), the 15 July Martyrs' (1973; the first Bosphorus bridge, 1,074 m; renamed for the coup night), the Osmangazi (2016; 1,550 m over the İzmit gulf), the Kömürhan of the Euphrates (2021), the Nissibi of the Atatürk lake (2015), the Malabadi stone bridge of 1147 on the Batman, the Uzunköprü of 1444 (the longest stone bridge of 1,392 m), the Mostar-like Ottoman bridges of the Black Sea valleys; the tunnels — the Marmaray (2013), the Eurasia (2016), the Zigana (2023), the Ovit (2018), the Ilgaz (2016) |
History in dates
| c. 9500 BCE – 2000 BCE | GÖBEKLİ TEPE near Şanlıurfa — the T-shaped pillars of the hunter-gatherers of about 9500 BCE, the world's oldest known monumental sanctuary (dug by Klaus Schmidt from 1995; World Heritage 2018; Karahan Tepe and the Taş Tepeler sites beside it — the seated figure on the leopard of August 2026's find), Çatalhöyük of the Konya plain (about 7400–6200 BCE; the 8,000 people of the roof-entered houses, the wall paintings, the Mother Goddess figurines — World Heritage 2012), Hacılar, Aşıklı Höyük, the Chalcolithic of Arslantepe at Malatya (the palace of about 3300 BCE and the world's earliest swords — World Heritage 2021), Troy I of about 3000 BCE on the Dardanelles (Schliemann's 1871 dig of the nine cities), the Hattians of the plateau and the Assyrian merchant colony of Kültepe (Kanesh; the 20,000 cuneiform tablets of about 1950 BCE — Anatolia's first writing), the Bronze Age trade of the Taurus silver and the Cypriot copper |
|---|---|
| 2000 BCE – 546 BCE | THE HITTITES — the Indo-European kingdom of Hattusha near Çorum (about 1650–1180 BCE; the capital's walls and the Lion Gate — World Heritage 1986; the Battle of Kadesh of 1274 BCE against Ramesses II and the treaty of 1259, the world's first known peace treaty, a copy on the UN's wall), the Hittite laws and the Yazılıkaya sanctuary; the Trojan War of about 1200 BCE by the tradition (Troy VI–VII; Homer's Iliad), the Bronze Age collapse and the Sea Peoples; the Neo-Hittite city-states of Carchemish and Karatepe, the Phrygians of Gordion (King Midas of about 700 BCE — the tumulus of the oldest standing wooden building; World Heritage 2023), the Urartians of Van (the fortress of Tushpa, about 860–590 BCE; the cuneiform of the citadel), the Lydians of Sardis (Gyges to CROESUS, about 680–546 BCE — THE FIRST COINS of electrum of about 600 BCE, the Pactolus gold; Sardis and Bin Tepe World Heritage 2025), the Greek colonies of Ionia (Miletus and Thales, Ephesus, Smyrna, Phocaea, Halicarnassus), the Carians and the Lycians of the rock tombs, the Cimmerian raids, Cyrus the Great's defeat of Croesus in 546 BCE — Anatolia Persian |
| 546 BCE – 133 BCE | The Persian satrapies of Lydia and Phrygia (the Royal Road of Sardis to Susa; the Ionian Revolt of 499–493 BCE that lit the Persian Wars; Herodotus of Halicarnassus, "the father of history"), Alexander the Great's crossing of 334 BCE (the Granicus, the Gordian knot cut at Gordion, Issus of 333 BCE near İskenderun), the Hellenistic kingdoms after him — the Seleucids of Antioch, the Attalids of PERGAMON (the library of 200,000 scrolls, the parchment named for it, the Great Altar in Berlin — World Heritage 2014), Pontus of Mithridates, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Commagene of Nemrut's heads (62 BCE), the Galatians of Ankara (the Celts of 278 BCE; Paul's epistle), the Seven Wonders' two — the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (the fire of 356 BCE, the night of Alexander's birth) and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (353 BCE), Hierapolis's travertines of Pamukkale, the Rhodian and Lycian leagues; Attalus III's bequest of Pergamon to Rome in 133 BCE — the province of Asia |
| 133 BCE – 330 CE | The Roman provinces of Asia, Bithynia, Galatia, Cilicia and Cappadocia (Cicero's governorship of 51 BCE; Caesar's "veni, vidi, vici" at Zela near Tokat in 47 BCE; Pompey's cities), the Pax Romana's Ephesus of 250,000 (the Celsus library of 117 CE, the theater of 25,000 — World Heritage 2015), Aphrodisias's sculptors, Aspendos's theater (155 CE), Sagalassos, the Roman roads and the aqueducts; THE CHRISTIANITY OF ANATOLIA — Paul of Tarsus's journeys of the 40s–50s CE (the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Colossians), the Seven Churches of Revelation (Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea), the first "Christians" named at Antioch (Acts 11:26), the martyrs of Polycarp (155) and Nicholas of Myra (the Santa Claus of Demre), the Cappadocian Fathers; Diocletian's persecution and Constantine's victory (312) — Byzantium refounded as CONSTANTINOPLE on 11 May 330 the New Rome; the Council of Nicaea of 325 (the Creed; the 1,700th year marked by Pope Leo XIV at İznik on 28 November 2025) |
| 330 – 1071 | The Byzantine millennium — Theodosius's walls (413), the Council of Chalcedon (451), Justinian's HAGIA SOPHIA dedicated on 27 December 537 (Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus; the world's largest interior for 500 years), the Nika riots (532), the Justinian plague (541), Heraclius's Persian war (602–28), the Arab sieges of Constantinople (674–78 and 717–18; the Greek fire), the Iconoclasm (726–843), the Cappadocian rock churches of Göreme (World Heritage 1985), the Macedonian renaissance of Basil II (976–1025), the Great Schism of 1054, the Armenian kingdoms of Ani (the "city of 1,001 churches"; World Heritage 2016) and Vaspurakan's Akdamar (921), the Seljuk Turks' arrival from Central Asia — Tughril's Baghdad of 1055, THE BATTLE OF MANZIKERT (Malazgirt) OF 26 AUGUST 1071: Alp Arslan's Seljuks capture the emperor Romanos IV — the Turks' gate into Anatolia (the "birthday of the Turkish homeland" of the republic's calendar) |
| 1071 – 1299 | The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (1077–1308) at İznik then KONYA — the Danishmends, the First Crusade's passage (1097; Dorylaeum), the Crusader county of Edessa (Şanlıurfa) and principality of Antioch, Kılıç Arslan's Myriokephalon of 1176, Alaeddin Keykubad's golden age (1220–37 — the caravanserais of the Silk Road's 100-odd, the Alanya shipyard, the Sultan Han), the Byzantine empire of Nicaea after the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople of 1204 (the Latin empire of 1204–61; Trebizond's Comneni to 1461), the Sufi JALALUDDIN RUMI (Mevlana) at Konya (1207–73; the Mathnawi, the Mevlevi whirling of his son's order — the Sema ICH 2008), Hacı Bektaş, Yunus Emre's Turkish verse, Nasreddin Hoca of Akşehir; THE MONGOLS' KÖSE DAĞ OF 1243 that broke the Seljuks — the Ilkhanid vassalage, the Anatolian beyliks of the 13th–14th centuries (Karaman, Germiyan, Aydın, Menteşe, Saruhan, Candar, the Ottomans of Söğüt), the Turkification of the plateau's language and faith over the two centuries; Osman Gazi's beylik founded about 1299 by the tradition (the dream of the tree) |
| 1299 – 1453 | THE OTTOMAN RISE — Osman I (about 1299–1324) at Söğüt, Orhan's Bursa (1326; the first capital, the mosques and the Cumalıkızık village — World Heritage 2014), the crossing to Europe at Gallipoli (1354), Murad I's Edirne (1369) and THE BATTLE OF KOSOVO OF 15 JUNE 1389 (the sultan killed in victory; the Balkans' Ottoman centuries begun), Bayezid the Thunderbolt's Nicopolis (1396) and his capture by Timur at THE BATTLE OF ANKARA OF 28 JULY 1402 (the Interregnum of 1402–13), Mehmed I and Murad II (Varna 1444; the Janissaries of the devshirme), the beyliks absorbed, the Bosnian and Serbian marches — MEHMED II'S CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE OF 29 MAY 1453 after the 53-day siege (the Rumeli Hisarı of 1452, the ships hauled overland, the Orban cannon, the fall of the Theodosian walls; Constantine XI dead; the Hagia Sophia a mosque, the Byzantine empire of 1,123 years ended, Istanbul the capital — the date the republic still celebrates) |
| 1453 – 1699 | The classical empire — Mehmed the Conqueror's Topkapı (1465) and the Grand Bazaar (1455), Bayezid II's welcome of the Spanish Jews (1492), SELİM I's Çaldıran (1514), Egypt and the caliphate (1517; the holy cities), SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT (1520–66): Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522), Mohács (29 August 1526), THE SIEGE OF VIENNA (1529), Barbarossa's fleet at Preveza (1538), the Süleymaniye of the architect SİNAN (1557; the Selimiye of Edirne of 1575 his masterpiece — World Heritage 2011), the Kanuni's laws, Roxelana; the three continents' empire of 20 million; the Sultanate of Women, Lepanto's defeat (7 October 1571) and Cyprus taken (1571), the Celali revolts, the Köprülü viziers' recovery, Crete (1669), THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA OF 1683 broken by Sobieski — the Holy League's war and THE TREATY OF KARLOWITZ OF 26 JANUARY 1699 (Hungary lost: the empire's first great retreat); the coffeehouses of Istanbul (1554), the tulips, Evliya Çelebi's travels, Piri Reis's map of 1513 |
| 1699 – 1839 | The long retreat — the Tulip Era of Ahmed III (1718–30; the printing press of İbrahim Müteferrika of 1727; the Patrona Halil revolt), the Russian wars (Peter's Pruth of 1711, Catherine's Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 — the Crimea lost by 1783, the Black Sea opened), Selim III's Nizam-ı Cedid army (1793–1807) and his murder, the Serbian (1804) and GREEK REVOLTS (1821–30; Navarino of 1827; Greece independent by 1830), MAHMUD II's abolition of the Janissaries on 15 June 1826 ("the Auspicious Incident"), Muhammad Ali of Egypt's revolt (Nezib 1839), the capitulations and the debts; the Ottoman Baroque of Nuruosmaniye, the Mevlevi music of Dede Efendi, the Bosphorus yalıs; the empire of the "Eastern Question" of Europe's chancelleries |
| 1839 – 1876 | THE TANZIMAT — the Gülhane Edict of 3 November 1839 (Mustafa Reşid Pasha; the equality of the subjects, the end of tax-farming promised) and the Reform Edict of 1856, the Crimean War (1853–56; the Ottoman side of Britain and France — the Paris treaty's Europe), the first railway (İzmir–Aydın, 1856–66), the first foreign loan (1854) and the bankruptcy of 1875, the Ottoman Bank (1856), the flag of 1844, the fez and the frock coat, the Dolmabahçe Palace (1856) in place of Topkapı, the Young Ottomans of Namık Kemal ("Vatan", 1873), Midhat Pasha's constitutionalism — the Lebanon's and Crete's troubles, the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 and the "Bulgarian horrors"; the deposition of Abdülaziz (30 May 1876) and of Murad V, Abdülhamid II's accession (31 August 1876) — THE FIRST CONSTITUTION OF 23 DECEMBER 1876 (Kanun-i Esasi; the first Ottoman parliament of March 1877) |
| 1876 – 1908 | Abdülhamid II's 33 years — the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78 (Plevna; the San Stefano treaty at the gates of Istanbul, the Congress of Berlin of 1878 — Romania, Serbia, Montenegro independent, Bulgaria autonomous, Cyprus to Britain, Kars and Batum to Russia), the parliament suspended (14 February 1878; the 30 years of personal rule), the Public Debt Administration (1881), the Hejaz Railway (1900–08) and the Baghdad Railway's German concession (1903), the Hamidiye regiments and THE ARMENIAN MASSACRES OF 1894–96 (the 100,000–300,000 dead by the historians' range), the Macedonian question, the schools and the telegraph of the modernizer, the censorship of the "Red Sultan" of the European press — both lines of the historiography stated; the Committee of Union and Progress of the exiled Young Turks (1889; the Paris and Salonica cells), Theodor Herzl's audience of 1901 refused; THE YOUNG TURK REVOLUTION OF 23–24 JULY 1908 — the constitution restored, the parliament recalled |
| 1908 – 1918 | The Second Constitutional Era — the "31 March" counter-coup of 13 April 1909 and Abdülhamid deposed (27 April 1909; Mehmed V), the CUP's "Three Pashas" (Enver, Talat, Cemal), the Italian war of 1911–12 (Libya and the Dodecanese lost), THE BALKAN WARS OF 1912–13 (Edirne lost and regained; the Balkans gone — the 400,000 Muslim refugees), the Bab-ı Ali coup of 23 January 1913; THE FIRST WORLD WAR — the German alliance of 2 August 1914, the Goeben and Breslau, Sarıkamış (December 1914 – January 1915; the 60,000 frozen dead), GALLIPOLI (the naval defeat of 18 March 1915 and the landings of 25 April; the Allied evacuation of January 1916 — Mustafa Kemal's name made at Anafartalar; about 250,000 casualties a side), THE ARMENIAN DEPORTATIONS AND KILLINGS OF 1915–16 (the 24 April 1915 arrests in Istanbul; the death marches to Deir ez-Zor — the 600,000 to 1.5 million dead by the historians' counts: "genocide" by 33 states' parliaments and most historians, "the wartime relocation's tragedy" by the Turkish state's line — both stated, LAW 2), Kut al-Amara (1916), the Arab Revolt (1916), Jerusalem and Baghdad lost (1917), THE ARMISTICE OF MUDROS OF 30 OCTOBER 1918 — the Allied fleet at Istanbul on 13 November 1918; the Three Pashas' flight |
| 1919 – 1923 | THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE — the Greek landing at İzmir of 15 May 1919, MUSTAFA KEMAL'S LANDING AT SAMSUN OF 19 MAY 1919, the Amasya circular, the Erzurum (July) and Sivas (September) congresses, THE GRAND NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OPENED AT ANKARA ON 23 APRIL 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920 (the partition the Assembly refused; never ratified), the eastern front against Armenia (Gümrü, December 1920), İnönü's two battles (January and March 1921), THE SAKARYA (23 August – 13 September 1921; "the line of defense is the whole homeland"), the Treaty of Kars (October 1921) and the French Ankara accord, THE GREAT OFFENSIVE AND DUMLUPINAR OF 26–30 AUGUST 1922 (the Greek rout; İzmir entered on 9 September and the great fire), the Mudanya armistice (11 October 1922), THE SULTANATE ABOLISHED ON 1 NOVEMBER 1922 (Mehmed VI's exile on a British ship, 17 November), the Lausanne conference and THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE OF 24 JULY 1923 (the borders, the capitulations ended, the population exchange of 1.2 million Greeks and 400,000 Muslims by the convention of 30 January 1923, the minorities' articles), Ankara the capital (13 October 1923), THE REPUBLIC PROCLAIMED ON 29 OCTOBER 1923 — Mustafa Kemal President, İsmet Pasha Prime Minister |
| 1923 – 1938 | ATATÜRK'S REVOLUTION — the caliphate abolished (3 March 1924; the Ottoman dynasty exiled), the 1924 constitution, the Sheikh Said rebellion (February–April 1925; the Independence Tribunals), the Hat Law (25 November 1925) and the dervish lodges closed (30 November 1925), the Gregorian calendar (1926), the Swiss civil code (17 February 1926 — the polygamy's end, the civil marriage), the Italian penal code, the İzmir assassination plot (1926), THE LATIN ALPHABET OF 1 NOVEMBER 1928 ("the alphabet's teacher"; the literacy from 10% to 20% by 1935), the "Islam" clause removed from the constitution (10 April 1928), the Turkish Historical Society (1931) and the Language Association (1932), the Turkish Women's rights — the municipal vote (1930), THE NATIONAL VOTE AND OFFICE OF 5 DECEMBER 1934 (the 17 women deputies of 1935 — before France and Italy), the Surname Law (21 June 1934; "Atatürk" by the Assembly's law of 24 November 1934), the metric system (1931), the étatist five-year plan (1934), the Montreux Convention on the Straits (20 July 1936), the Dersim operations of 1937–38 (the 13,000 dead by the state's own 2011 count — the "rebellion" and the "massacre" readings both stated, LAW 2), the Hatay question opened (1936), the "six arrows" of Kemalism in the constitution (1937); ATATÜRK DIES AT DOLMABAHÇE ON 10 NOVEMBER 1938 AT 9:05 — the sirens of every 10 November since |
| 1938 – 1960 | İsmet İnönü the "National Chief" (11 November 1938), Hatay's accession (29 June – 23 July 1939; the province of that year), THE SECOND WORLD WAR'S NEUTRALITY (the Allied pacts, the German trade, the chrome; the Wealth Tax of 11 November 1942 on the minorities and the Aşkale camps; the Struma of 1942; the war declared on Germany on 23 February 1945 for the UN's seat), the Soviet claims on Kars and the Straits (1945–46) — the Truman Doctrine (12 March 1947), the Marshall Plan, THE MULTIPARTY TURN (the Democrat Party of 7 January 1946; the open vote of 1946, the free one of 14 May 1950 — the DP's 416 of 487 seats, Celal Bayar President, ADNAN MENDERES Prime Minister), Korea's brigade (1950–53; the 721 dead), NATO'S MEMBERSHIP OF 18 FEBRUARY 1952, the Baghdad Pact (1955), the Menderes decade's roads, mosques and tractors, the Cyprus question's rise (EOKA from 1955) and THE ISTANBUL POGROM OF 6–7 SEPTEMBER 1955 (the Greek shops and churches; the Greeks' exodus), the DP's press and the university crackdowns of 1959–60, the student deaths of April 1960 — THE COUP OF 27 MAY 1960 (the National Unity Committee of Gürsel; the Yassıada trials — Menderes, Zorlu and Polatkan hanged on 16–17 September 1961; the DP's three the republic's wound) |
| 1960 – 1980 | The 1961 constitution (9 July 1961; the Senate, the Constitutional Court, the rights — the "liberal" charter of the junta), the coalitions of İnönü (1961–65) and Süleyman Demirel's Justice Party (1965, 1969), the Cyprus crisis of 1963–64 (the Johnson letter of 5 June 1964 that stopped the landing), the student left of 1968, Deniz Gezmiş's THKO (hanged 6 May 1972), THE MEMORANDUM OF 12 MARCH 1971 (the generals' letter; the martial law and the torture of the "71 regime"), Bülent Ecevit's CHP (the 1973 vote) and the Erbakan coalition — THE CYPRUS INTERVENTION OF 20 JULY 1974 ("the Peace Operation" of Ankara, "the invasion" of Nicosia and the UN — both stated, LAW 2; the 37% of the island; the U.S. arms embargo of 1975–78; the Turkish Federated State of 1975), the Kıbrıs and the poppy, the "National Front" governments of Demirel with Erbakan and Türkeş (1975–78), the political violence of the late 1970s (the 5,000 dead of the left and right; Taksim's Bloody May Day of 1 May 1977 — 34 dead; the Maraş massacre of the Alevis of December 1978 — about 100; the Çorum of 1980), the oil shock's economy (the queues; the 24 January 1980 decisions of Özal), the Ecevit–Demirel deadlock of the presidency's 115 ballots — THE COUP OF 12 SEPTEMBER 1980 (Kenan Evren; the 650,000 detained, 230,000 tried, 50 executed, the parties banned, the torture of Diyarbakır prison) |
| 1980 – 1993 | The junta's constitution of 7 November 1982 (91.37% yes under the ban on the campaign; Evren President to 1989), THE PKK'S WAR FROM 15 AUGUST 1984 (Abdullah Öcalan's party of 1978; Eruh and Şemdinli; the state of emergency of the southeast of 1987–2002, the village guards, the 3,000 villages evacuated by the 1990s — the 40,000 dead of the four decades by the usual count), TURGUT ÖZAL's Motherland Party win of 6 November 1983 (the liberalization, the exports, the color television and the highways, the convertible lira of 1989, the application to the EC of 14 April 1987), the Bulgarian Turks' exodus of 1989 (320,000), Özal's presidency (9 November 1989), the Gulf War's pipeline closure (1990), Demirel's and İnönü's coalition of 1991, the Operation Provide Comfort of the Iraqi Kurds (1991), the Kurdish-language ban lifted (1991), Özal's death (17 April 1993) — Demirel President, TANSU ÇİLLER the first woman Prime Minister (25 June 1993); the Sivas Madımak massacre of 2 July 1993 (the 33 Alevi intellectuals burned; the Islamist mob); the 1993 PKK ceasefire broken (the Bingöl ambush of 24 May — the "dirty war" of the 1990s) |
| 1993 – 2002 | The lost decade — the 1994 currency crisis (the lira's halving; the IMF of April), the Welfare Party's 1995 win (21%) and NECMETTİN ERBAKAN's premiership (28 June 1996 – 18 June 1997 — the D-8, the Libya visit), the Susurluk crash of 3 November 1996 (the state–mafia–police car; "one minute of darkness for enduring light"), THE "POSTMODERN COUP" OF 28 FEBRUARY 1997 (the National Security Council's 18 demands; Erbakan out; the Welfare Party closed in 1998, Erdoğan jailed for the Siirt poem in 1999), ÖCALAN CAPTURED AT NAIROBI ON 15 FEBRUARY 1999 (the Italian and Kenyan months; the death sentence commuted to life on İmralı in 2002), THE İZMİT EARTHQUAKE OF 17 AUGUST 1999 (M7.6; 17,479 dead by the IFRC's count, 18,373 by another — both stated), the EU candidacy of Helsinki (December 1999), the Ecevit coalition's IMF program, THE CRISIS OF 21 FEBRUARY 2001 (the Sezer–Ecevit quarrel; the lira's float, the dollar at 1,500,000; Kemal Derviş's reforms, the Central Bank's independence), the death penalty's peacetime abolition (August 2002), the AKP founded on 14 August 2001 from the Virtue Party's reformers — THE AKP'S WIN OF 3 NOVEMBER 2002 (34.3%, 363 of 550 seats; the 10% threshold that left only the CHP beside it; Abdullah Gül Prime Minister until Erdoğan's ban lifted) |
| 2002 – 2010 | The AKP's first decade — ERDOĞAN PRIME MINISTER FROM 14 MARCH 2003 after the Siirt by-election, the Iraq war's base refusal of 1 March 2003 (the Assembly's "no"), the Istanbul bombings of 15 and 20 November 2003 (the synagogues, HSBC, the British consulate — 57 dead), the EU reforms (the death penalty gone, the Kurdish broadcasts, the civil-military changes) — THE ACCESSION TALKS OPENED ON 3 OCTOBER 2005, the redenomination of 2005, the Cyprus Annan Plan's referendum of 24 April 2004 (the Turkish Cypriots' yes, the Greek Cypriots' no), the Hrant Dink murder of 19 January 2007, the "e-memorandum" of 27 April 2007 and the presidential crisis (Abdullah Gül President on 28 August 2007 after the July election's 46.6%), the AKP closure case of 2008 survived by one vote, the Ergenekon (2007–) and Sledgehammer (2010–) trials of the generals (the "deep state" and the "fabricated evidence" readings both stated, LAW 2), the 2008–09 crisis survived, the "Kurdish opening" of 2009 and the Habur return, the Davos "one minute" of January 2009 to Peres, the Mavi Marmara of 31 May 2010 (the nine dead; the Israeli apology of 2013), the headscarf's university return, the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture, THE REFERENDUM OF 12 SEPTEMBER 2010 (58% yes; the judiciary reshaped) — the lira at 1.5, the growth of 8% |
| 2011 – 2016 | The third win of 12 June 2011 (49.8%), the Syrian war from 2011 (the refugees to 3.7 million; the Reyhanlı bombing of 11 May 2013 — 52 dead), the 4+4+4 schools, the Oslo talks and the Kurdish peace process of 2013–15 (Öcalan's Newroz letter of 21 March 2013), THE GEZİ PARK PROTESTS OF 28 MAY – JUNE 2013 (the 11 dead, the 8,000 injured, the 78 provinces; the Taksim square — the "çapulcu"), the corruption probe of 17–25 December 2013 (the ministers' sons, the shoeboxes; the Gülenist "parallel state" by the government's line, the "the biggest corruption of the republic" by the opposition's — both stated, LAW 2), the Soma mine disaster of 13 May 2014 (301 dead), ERDOĞAN PRESIDENT BY THE FIRST POPULAR VOTE OF 10 AUGUST 2014 (51.8%), Davutoğlu Prime Minister, the June 2015 election (the AKP's majority lost; the HDP's 13%), the Suruç bombing (20 July 2015; 33 dead) and the PKK war resumed (the Cizre and Sur curfews of 2015–16), THE ANKARA STATION BOMBING OF 10 OCTOBER 2015 (109 dead — the republic's deadliest attack), the November 2015 election (49.5%), the Russian jet downed (24 November 2015), the ISIS and TAK bombings of 2016 (Istanbul's Sultanahmet, Atatürk airport of 28 June — 45 dead), the EU–Turkey migrant deal (18 March 2016), THE COUP ATTEMPT OF 15 JULY 2016 (the Bosphorus bridge, the Assembly bombed, the 253 dead and 2,700 injured; Erdoğan's FaceTime call; the Gülen movement blamed — "FETÖ"; the state of emergency of 20 July 2016 – 19 July 2018: the 150,000 dismissed, the 50,000 jailed, the 32 decree-laws), the Reina New Year attack (1 January 2017; 39 dead) |
| 2017 – 2022 | THE REFERENDUM OF 16 APRIL 2017 (51.4% yes; the presidential system — the opposition's "unstamped ballots"), Operation Euphrates Shield (2016–17), Olive Branch (Afrin, 2018) and Peace Spring (2019) in Syria, the Brunson sanctions and THE CURRENCY CRISIS OF AUGUST 2018 (the lira from 3.8 at the year's start to 7 in August; the 24% rate of September), THE ELECTION OF 24 JUNE 2018 (52.6%; the presidential system in force on 9 July — the prime minister's office gone), the Khashoggi murder at the Saudi consulate (2 October 2018), the local elections of 31 March 2019 and THE ISTANBUL RE-RUN OF 23 JUNE 2019 (İmamoğlu 54.2% after the annulment — "everything will be fine"), the S-400s delivered (July 2019; the F-35 exclusion), the Elazığ (January 2020) and İzmir (30 October 2020; 117 dead) earthquakes, COVID-19 (the first case of 11 March 2020; the 102,000 dead by the official count; the lockdowns of 2021), the Hagia Sophia a mosque again (24 July 2020), the Nagorno-Karabakh war's TB2s (autumn 2020), the Istanbul Convention left (1 July 2021), the Boğaziçi protests (2021), THE LIRA'S CRASH OF DECEMBER 2021 (the cuts to 14%; 18 to the dollar; the KKM), the Ukraine war's grain corridor (22 July 2022) and the Istanbul talks of March 2022, the "Türkiye" at the UN (1 June 2022), the inflation peak of 85.5% (October 2022), the Istiklal Street bombing (13 November 2022; six dead), the "Century of Türkiye" (28 October 2022) |
| 2023 | 6 FEBRUARY — THE KAHRAMANMARAŞ EARTHQUAKES (M7.7 at 04:17 and M7.6 at 13:24; 53,537 dead by the ministry's count of 2024, 107,213 injured, the 11 provinces, the 300,000 buildings — the amnesty of 2018 and the contractors' trials; the US$100 billion bill); 3 March — the early-retirement (EYT) law; 14 and 28 MAY — THE ELECTIONS: Erdoğan 49.52% then 52.18% over Kılıçdaroğlu (47.82%) in the first runoff; the Assembly's AKP 268, CHP 169, YSP 61; 3 June — the oath and the cabinet (Şimşek's return, Fidan, Güler, Yılmaz); 22 June — the rate hike to 15% (the orthodox turn); 11 July — the NATO Vilnius deal on Sweden; 24 August — the Central Bank's 25%; 29 OCTOBER — THE CENTENARY OF THE REPUBLIC; 4 November — Özgür Özel elected CHP chair over Kılıçdaroğlu at the 38th congress (the "nullity" case's root); 21 December — the rate at 42.5%; the year's inflation 64.8%; the Gaza war's rhetoric ("Hamas not a terrorist organization" of 25 October); the Istanbul Airport's 76 million; the Togg's first deliveries (April); the Galatasaray title; the Can Atalay case's court war; the 2023 growth 5.1% |
| 2024 | 23 January — Sweden's NATO accession ratified; 25 January — the rate at 45%; 3 February — Karahan the Central Bank governor; 21 February — the KAAN's first flight; 21 March — the 50% peak rate; 31 MARCH — THE LOCAL ELECTIONS: the CHP first nationally (37.8%) for the first time since 1977 — İmamoğlu's Istanbul (51.1%), Yavaş's Ankara, the AKP's loss of the big cities; May — the trade with Israel cut; the 75.45% inflation of May the peak; 1 July — the stray-dog law's protests; the Euro 2024 quarterfinal (6 July; the "wolf salute" quarrel with Germany); 22 OCTOBER — BAHÇELİ'S CALL TO ÖCALAN ("come to the Assembly"); 23 October — the TUSAŞ attack at Kahramankazan (five dead); 30 October — Esenyurt's mayor Özer removed (the first CHP trustee of the term); 8 DECEMBER — ASSAD'S FALL (the HTS offensive Ankara backed; Fidan at Damascus on 22 December; the returns begun); 26 December — the rate cut to 47.5% (the easing's start); the year's growth 3.2%, the inflation 44.4%, the minimum wage ₺17,002 → ₺22,104 for 2025; the 2024 Olympics' eight medals without a gold (the first since 1984) — the Dikeç pistol pose of the memes |
| 2025 (January – June) | 20 January — Ümit Özdağ (Zafer) arrested; 21 JANUARY — THE KARTALKAYA HOTEL FIRE at Bolu (78 dead, 36 of them children); 11 February — the CHP's Istanbul officials arrested; 27 FEBRUARY — ÖCALAN'S CALL TO DISARM (read at the Istanbul hotel by the DEM delegation); 1 March — the PKK's ceasefire; 7 March — the rate cut to 42.5%; 18 MARCH — İMAMOĞLU'S DIPLOMA ANNULLED; 19 MARCH — İMAMOĞLU DETAINED at dawn (23 March arrested and suspended; the protests of the universities and Saraçhane, the 1,879 detained, the Maltepe rally of 29 March — "2.2 million" by the CHP; the lira's 12% fall, the stocks' 8.7%); 23 March — the CHP primary's 15.5 million ballots for him; 26 March — Nuri Aslan the interim mayor; 17 April — the emergency hike to 46%; 23 APRIL — THE MARMARA QUAKE (M6.2 off Silivri; no deaths); 1 May — the 407 detained at Taksim; 7 May — the stray-dog law upheld; 12 MAY — THE PKK ANNOUNCES ITS DISSOLUTION (the congress of 5–7 May); 16 May — the Istanbul talks of Russia and Ukraine at the Dolmabahçe (the first since 2022; 2 June and 23 July the next); 17 June — Özdağ released after the 2-year sentence; the first quarter's growth 2.0% and the second's 4.8%; the hazelnut frost of April; the Fenerbahçe EuroLeague of 25 May |
| 2025 (July – December) | 1 July — İzmir's ex-mayor arrested; 5 July — the mayors of Adana, Antalya and Adıyaman detained; 11 JULY — THE PKK BURNS ITS WEAPONS at Sulaymaniyah (30 fighters; "an irreversible turning point" by Erdoğan); 16 July — İmamoğlu's insult conviction (20 months); 25 July — the rate cut to 43%; Moody's Ba3; 25 July — the 50.5 °C of Silopi (the record); the wildfires of 81,473 hectares; 5 August — the Assembly's commission on the process; 5 August — Bayraktaroğlu the chief of staff; 29 August — the trade and airspace cut with Israel completed; 2 SEPTEMBER — THE CHP'S ISTANBUL CONGRESS ANNULLED (Gürsel Tekin the trustee; the 8 September police entry); 7 September — the 0–6 to Spain at Konya; 12 September — the rate at 40.5%; 14 September — the EuroBasket final lost to Germany; 21 September — Özel re-elected 835–0; 25 SEPTEMBER — ERDOĞAN AT THE WHITE HOUSE (the F-35 hint, the nuclear MoU); 10 October — the Gaza ceasefire with Ankara a guarantor; 16 October — the 5G auction and the 2026 budget presented; 19 October — Erhürman elected in Northern Cyprus; 24 October — the nullity case dismissed at first instance; the rate at 39.5%; 26 OCTOBER — THE PKK'S WITHDRAWAL to Iraq; 27 October — the Eurofighter deal with Britain (20 jets); the Sındırgı quake; 28 October — the first Altay tank; 31 October — the Kartalkaya verdicts (11 life terms); 11 NOVEMBER — THE İMAMOĞLU INDICTMENT (3,700 pages; 2,352 years sought) and the C-130 crash in Georgia (20 dead); 13 November — the 102 footballers banned in the betting scandal; 18 November — the 2–2 at Seville; 27–30 November — Pope Leo XIV at Ankara, Istanbul and İznik; 28–30 November — the CHP's 39th congress; 12 December — the rate at 38%; 23 December — the minimum wage ₺28,075; 29 December — the Yalova ISIS raid (three police dead); the year's growth 3.6%, the inflation 30.89% |
| 2026 (January – June) | 8 January — the US$3.5 billion Eurobond; 10 January — the Yeni Yol group; 16 January — the reserves' record US$205 billion; 22 JANUARY — THE RATE CUT TO 37%; 24 January — Fitch's positive outlook; 30 January — the Syrian SDF deal and the reserves' peak US$218 billion; 4 February — the espionage indictment; 9 February — the population 86.09 million; 11 FEBRUARY — THE RESHUFFLE (Gürlek to Justice, Çiftçi to the Interior) and the Assembly brawl; 18 February — the commission's report (47–2); 28 FEBRUARY — THE IRAN WAR BEGINS (the U.S. and Israel; the oil at the pumps, the reserves' US$55 billion defense); 2 March — the 2025 growth 3.6%; 4, 9, 13 and 30 March — the four Iranian missiles intercepted over the southeast by NATO's Patriots; 9 MARCH — THE İMAMOĞLU TRIAL OPENS at Silivri (402 defendants); 10 March — the Halkbank case ended; 12 March — the rate held; 31 March — Bursa's mayor Bozbey detained; 31 MARCH — THE WORLD CUP REACHED at Pristina (Kosovo 0–1; Romania 1–0 at Istanbul on 26 March); 1 April — the 5G switched on; 4 April — Zelensky at Istanbul; 7 April — the Israeli consulate attack (three attackers dead); 8 April — the Iran ceasefire; 10 April — Fitch back to stable; 22 April — the rate held; 4 May — Yılmaz at Yerevan; 9 May — Galatasaray's 26th title; the BIST 100's record 15,205; 12–13 May — the espionage trial opens; 21 MAY — THE CHP RULING: Özel removed, Kılıçdaroğlu reinstated; the tax law; 22 May — Trabzonspor's cup; 24 May — the police at the CHP's headquarters, the stocks −6%; 1 June — the first quarter's 2.6%; 11 June — the rate held; 14 JUNE — THE WORLD CUP: Australia 2–0 at Vancouver; 15 June — the Uçum proposal of 16 April 2028; 20 June — Paraguay 1–0 at Santa Clara; 23 June — the 209 pre-summit arrests; 25 June — Türkiye 3–2 United States at Inglewood (Güler, Ayhan 90+8′) — out in the group |
| 2026 (July – October) | 5 July — the 665th Kırkpınar (Erkan Taş); 7–8 JULY — THE NATO SUMMIT AT ANKARA (Trump's "we're going to be taking the sanctions off"; the €70 billion a year for Ukraine; the UK–Türkiye security partnership); 10 July — the police at the CHP's Istanbul office; 14 July — the Netanyahu arrest warrant; 15 July — the coup attempt's tenth anniversary; 21 July — Öcalan's call for "a legal foundation"; 23 July — the rate held (fourth); 24 JULY — THE YENİ PARTİ FOUNDED by Özel with 91 deputies (the CHP left with 44); 26 July — the women's volleyball VNL title (Brazil 3–1 at Macao); 28–31 July — the wildfires of Antalya and Muğla; 5 August — the PKK law tabled; 7 August — the Mecca defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; 10 AUGUST — THE PKK LAW PASSED 467–87 (the Gazette of 17 August; the board's first meeting of 24 August); 14 August — the Assembly's count (AKP 280, Yeni Parti 91); 18 August — the Iran ceasefire's extension lapses; 24 AUGUST — THE MAYORS' VERDICTS (Akpolat 21–23 years, Karalar 6); 31 August — the second quarter's 2.3%; the 54th national park; 3 September — the Mediterranean Games' 111 medals; 4 September — the Golden Global Bank sanctioned; 6 SEPTEMBER — THE MEDIUM-TERM PROGRAM (3.3%, 28.4%) and the women's European volleyball title at Istanbul (Italy 3–2); 10 September — the rate held (fifth); 11 September — İmamoğlu's 2 years 4 months for insult; 14 September — Bahçeli confirms the İmralı house; 22 September — Erdoğan at the UN ("abolish the veto"); 25 September — the reserves US$171.2 billion; 28 September — the espionage hearing (the next 23 December) and Italy 4–1 at Bursa; 30 September — the unemployment 7.8%; 1 OCTOBER — THE ASSEMBLY OPENS (the Yeni Parti's walkout; "the ideal period" for a constitution); 2 October — the lira at 49, Belgium 3–0; 4 October — the September exports' US$26 billion; THE STATE AS OF 4 OCTOBER 2026 — President Erdoğan in the third term, the Assembly of the 326 and the 266, the Yeni Parti the main opposition, İmamoğlu in Silivri, the PKK law in force, the rate at 37%, the inflation at 31.5%, the lira at 49, the 2027 budget due by 17 October, the September CPI due on 5 October, COP31 at Antalya ahead — the state's and the opposition's readings both stated (LAW 2) |
| The presidents and the prime ministers | The Presidents — Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK (29 October 1923 – 10 November 1938), İsmet İnönü (1938–50), Celal Bayar (1950–60; deposed by the coup, jailed), Cemal Gürsel (1961–66; the coup's general), Cevdet Sunay (1966–73), Fahri Korutürk (1973–80), Kenan Evren (1982–89; the 1980 coup's chief — tried in 2012, sentenced to life in 2014 at 96), Turgut Özal (1989–93; died in office), Süleyman Demirel (1993–2000; seven times Prime Minister before it), Ahmet Necdet Sezer (2000–07), Abdullah Gül (2007–14), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (since 28 August 2014; the only one elected by the people) — twelve in 103 years; the Prime Ministers of 1920–2018 (the office abolished on 9 July 2018) — İnönü (the first of the republic, 1923–24 and 1925–37), Celal Bayar, Refik Saydam, Şükrü Saracoğlu, Recep Peker, Hasan Saka, Şemsettin Günaltay, ADNAN MENDERES (1950–60; hanged 1961), İnönü again (1961–65), Suat Hayri Ürgüplü, SÜLEYMAN DEMİREL (1965–71, 1975–78, 1979–80, 1991–93), Nihat Erim, Ferit Melen, Naim Talu, BÜLENT ECEVİT (1974, 1977, 1978–79, 1999–2002), Sadi Irmak, Bülend Ulusu (the coup's), TURGUT ÖZAL (1983–89), Yıldırım Akbulut, Mesut Yılmaz (1991, 1996, 1997–99), TANSU ÇİLLER (1993–96; the first woman), NECMETTİN ERBAKAN (1996–97), Abdullah Gül (2002–03), RECEP TAYYİP ERDOĞAN (2003–14), Ahmet Davutoğlu (2014–16), Binali Yıldırım (2016–18; the 27th and last); the 27 prime ministers of 26 names (Fethi Okyar of 1924–25 among them) |
| The coups and the crises in dates | 27 May 1960 — the first coup (the Yassıada hangings of 1961); 12 March 1971 — the memorandum; 20 July 1974 — the Cyprus landing; 1 May 1977 — the Taksim massacre; 12 September 1980 — the second coup (the 50 executions, the 1982 constitution); 15 August 1984 — the PKK's first attacks; 28 February 1997 — the "postmodern coup"; 17 August 1999 — the İzmit quake; 21 February 2001 — the economic crisis; 27 April 2007 — the e-memorandum; 28 May 2013 — Gezi; 17 December 2013 — the corruption probe; 10 October 2015 — the Ankara bombing (109); 15 JULY 2016 — THE COUP ATTEMPT (253 dead) and the state of emergency to 19 July 2018; 16 April 2017 — the referendum; August 2018 — the currency crisis; 23 June 2019 — the Istanbul re-run; December 2021 — the lira's crash; 6 FEBRUARY 2023 — THE EARTHQUAKES (53,537); 28 May 2023 — the runoff; 31 March 2024 — the local elections; 21 January 2025 — Kartalkaya; 19 March 2025 — İmamoğlu's arrest; 12 May 2025 — the PKK's dissolution; 11 July 2025 — the arms burned; 28 February 2026 — the Iran war; 21 May 2026 — the CHP ruling; 24 July 2026 — the Yeni Parti; 10 August 2026 — the PKK law — the "stability" of the state's telling and the "the democracy's erosion" of the opposition's both stated (LAW 2) |
Records
| Göbekli Tepe and the first temples | Göbekli Tepe — the oldest known monumental sanctuary of the world (about 9500 BCE; 6,000 years before Stonehenge, 7,000 before the pyramids; the T-pillars of 5.5 m with the foxes, the boars and the vultures carved; World Heritage 2018; about a million visitors a year), Karahan Tepe and the Taş Tepeler (the 12 sites of the Şanlıurfa plateau; the "Urfa Man" of about 9000 BCE the oldest life-size human statue; the seated figure on the leopard of 2026), Çatalhöyük (the Neolithic town of 8,000 of about 7000 BCE — among the first cities by the claim; the oldest known map or landscape painting of about 6200 BCE by the reading), Aşıklı Höyük's brain surgery of 8000 BCE by the find, Arslantepe's first swords (about 3300 BCE), Kültepe's first writing of Anatolia (about 1950 BCE), Hattusha's first known peace treaty (1259 BCE), Sardis's first coins (about 600 BCE), the first Christian name at Antioch, the Council of Nicaea's creed (325), Hagia Sophia's largest dome of a thousand years (537), the Grand Bazaar of 1455 (among the world's oldest and largest covered markets — the 4,000 shops, the 91 million visitors of 2014 by the count), the Tünel of 1875 (the second-oldest underground), the Istanbul University of 1453 by its own count |
|---|---|
| Istanbul, the city of empires | Byzantium of 667 BCE, Constantinople of 330, Istanbul of 1930 — the capital of the Roman (330–395), Byzantine (395–1453) and Ottoman (1453–1922) empires for 1,600 years; the only city on two continents; 15,754,053 people (2025) — the largest city of Europe by the common count and among the world's top 15; the Hagia Sophia (537; a mosque since 24 July 2020 after the museum years of 1934–2020 — the restoration under the dome's scaffolding of 2025–26), the Blue Mosque (1616), Topkapı (1465), the Theodosian walls, the Basilica Cistern, the Chora (a mosque again on 6 May 2024), the Süleymaniye, the Galata Tower (1348), the Dolmabahçe, the Bosphorus and its three bridges, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, the Princes' Islands, the Maiden's Tower; the Istanbul Airport's 84.44 million (Europe's second) and the two airports' 132 million; the metro's 402.6 km; the Marmaray and the Eurasia Tunnel; the 18.97 million foreign visitors of 2025 (the 36% of the country's); the İBB of the jailed mayor; the Galatasaray–Fenerbahçe–Beşiktaş derbies; the stray cats; the 1,600 years of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; the expected earthquake; the 2010 European Capital of Culture; the city of Pamuk's "hüzün" |
| The firsts of the Republic | The women's vote and office of 5 December 1934 (the municipal of 1930) — before France (1944), Italy (1946) and Switzerland (1971); the Latin alphabet of 1928 the first of a Muslim-majority state; the civil code of 1926 (the polygamy's end); the caliphate abolished in 1924 — the first republic of the Muslim world's old heartland; the first woman combat pilot of the world by the Guinness line (Sabiha Gökçen, 1937), the first woman Prime Minister (Tansu Çiller, 1993), the first women judges of 1930; the first Muslim-majority member of NATO (1952) and of the Council of Europe (1950); the first directly elected President (2014); the first runoff (2023); the first Nobel laureates — Orhan Pamuk (Literature 2006), Aziz Sancar (Chemistry 2015), Daron Acemoglu (Economics 2024); the Eurovision win of 2003 (Sertab Erener); the first Turkish astronaut (Alper Gezeravcı, 19 January 2024 on the Axiom-3 flight); the Türksat 6A of 2024 (the first domestic satellite); the KAAN's first flight (21 February 2024); the TCG Anadolu (2023; the world's first drone carrier by the navy's claim); the Togg (2023); the 1915 Çanakkale bridge's world record (2022); the "Türkiye" of the UN (2022) |
| The bridges, tunnels and airports | The 1915 Çanakkale Bridge (18 March 2022) — the world's longest suspension span at 2,023 m (the Akashi Kaikyō's 1,991 beaten; the towers of 318 m for the year 1918; the 4.6 km in all), the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge (2016; 1,408 m — the widest suspension bridge by the claim at 58.5 m, the rail and the road), the Fatih Sultan Mehmet (1988), the 15 July Martyrs' (1973; the first across the Bosphorus), the Osmangazi (2016; 1,550 m), the Marmaray (2013; the first rail tunnel under the Bosphorus, 60 m deep — the Ottoman dream of 1860), the Eurasia Tunnel (2016; 106 m deep), the Zigana (2023; 14.5 km — Europe's longest twin-tube by the claim), the Ovit (14.3 km); the Istanbul Airport (2018; the 84.44 million of 2025 — Europe's second; the world's largest terminal under one roof by the claim at 1.4 million m²), the Rize-Artvin and Ordu-Giresun airports built on the sea; the YHT of 2009 (the first high-speed rail of the Muslim world and of the Balkans–Middle East), the Istanbul metro's 402.6 km (Europe's fourth by the count), the Metrobüs's 1 million a day; the Atatürk Dam (1990; among the world's largest embankment dams at 184 m), the Yusufeli (2022; 275 m — the country's tallest), the Deriner (249 m); the TurkStream and TANAP pipelines; the Uzunköprü of 1444 (the world's longest stone bridge at 1,392 m by the claim); Sinan's 400 works and the Selimiye's dome Sinan claimed wider than Hagia Sophia's |
| The hazelnut and the table | The world's first producer of hazelnuts (about 70% of the supply; Ferrero's Nutella from Ordu and Giresun — the 2025 frost's 518,000 metric tons, the 2026 rebound to 805,000), apricots (Malatya's dried apricots 80% of the world trade), figs (Aydın's dried figs), cherries, quinces, poppy seeds, the second in watermelons, cucumbers, chickpeas, honey and olives by the years, the top five in tea, tomatoes, grapes, apples, lemons and lentils; the world's heaviest tea drinkers (about 3.5 kg a head a year — the çay in the tulip glass, ICH 2022); the Turkish coffee (ICH 2013; the first coffeehouses of Istanbul of 1554 — Europe's coffee came through them), the döner kebab that Berlin's Kadir Nurman wrapped in 1972 by the claim (the Germans' 7 million a day), the baklava of Gaziantep (the EU's 2013 protected name), the lokum (Hacı Bekir, 1777), the simit, the ayran (the national drink by the 2013 line), the rakı, the Maraş ice cream, the künefe, the Adana kebab, the mantı, the pide, the lahmacun, the kahvaltı of 50 plates, the keşkek and the mesir paste of the ICH, the halva, the boza of the winter nights, the Antep işi embroidery of December 2025's listing — the 32 intangible elements the world's second after China; the Michelin guide of Istanbul (2022), İzmir and Bodrum (2023); the gastronomy of Gaziantep (UNESCO Creative City 2015) and Hatay (2017) |
| The sporting firsts | The Olympics — 103 medals (41 gold) by Olympedia's count and 111 by the other list's (both stated), the wrestling's 66–68 of them (the oil wrestlers' country; Yaşar Doğu, Hamit Kaplan, Taha Akgül's 2016 gold and 2024 bronze, Rıza Kayaalp), the weightlifting of NAİM SÜLEYMANOĞLU ("the Pocket Hercules"; the three golds of 1988, 1992 and 1996 — the first in the sport; the 1.47 m) and Halil Mutlu (1996, 2000, 2004), the boxing's 2020 gold of Busenaz Sürmeneli and the 2024 silvers, Paris 2024's eight medals without a gold (the first since 1984; Yusuf Dikeç's hand-in-pocket silver the Games' meme), Tokyo's 13; football — the first team of the Muslim world at a World Cup semifinal (2002; the third place over South Korea), the Euro 2008 semifinal, the 2026 World Cup reached after 24 years (31 March 2026) and the 3–2 over the hosts of 25 June 2026 at Inglewood (Arda Güler the youngest Turkish World Cup scorer at 21), Galatasaray's UEFA Cup and Super Cup of 2000, Hakan Şükür's 11-second goal of 2002 (the World Cup's fastest), the Süper Lig's Galatasaray 26; basketball's EuroBasket silvers of 2001 and 2025 and the 2010 World Championship silver at Istanbul, Fenerbahçe's EuroLeagues of 2017 and 2025, Anadolu Efes's of 2021 and 2022, Şengün's NBA; the women's volleyball Sultans — the European titles of 2023 and 2026, the Nations League of 2023 and 2026, the world silver of 2025 (Vargas); the Kırkpınar since the 14th century; the Mediterranean Games' second place of 2026 (111 medals); the Istanbul Marathon's two continents (41,416 of 2025); the Formula 1 of 2005–21 returning in October 2027; the Euro 2032 co-host with Italy; Ferhat Arıcan's gymnastics bronze of 2020 (the first); Nafia Kuş's taekwondo bronze of 2024 |
| The letters and the screen | Orhan Pamuk's Nobel of 2006 ("My Name Is Red", "Snow", "Istanbul: Memories and the City"; the Museum of Innocence of 2012), Yaşar Kemal ("Memed, My Hawk", 1955), Nâzım Hikmet (the communist poet of "Human Landscapes"; died in Moscow in 1963, the citizenship restored in 2009), Aziz Nesin, Sabahattin Ali ("Madonna in a Fur Coat"), Elif Şafak, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Oğuz Atay, Rumi's Mathnawi (the best-selling poet of America by the 2000s' line), Yunus Emre, Evliya Çelebi; Daron Acemoglu's economics Nobel of 2024 and Aziz Sancar's chemistry of 2015; the cinema — Yılmaz Güney's Palme d'Or of 1982 ("Yol"), NURİ BİLGE CEYLAN's of 2014 ("Winter Sleep"; the Grand Prix of "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia"), Fatih Akın's Berlin Golden Bear of 2004 ("Head-On"), the Antalya Golden Orange since 1964 and the Istanbul Film Festival (the 45th of April 2026), the Yeşilçam studios of the 1960s–70s (Türkan Şoray, Kemal Sunal), the Cem Yılmaz comedies; THE DİZİ — the TV series exported to about 170 countries for US$1 billion-plus a year ("Magnificent Century", "Resurrection: Ertuğrul", "Kuruluş: Osman", "The Protector" of Netflix; the world's second exporter after the United States by the trade's line, the top three by the ministry's); the music — Zeki Müren, Sezen Aksu, Tarkan's "Şımarık" (1997), Barış Manço, the arabesk of Müslüm Gürses, the Mevlevi ney, Fazıl Say's piano, Sertab's Eurovision of 2003 (the withdrawal of 2013); the Istanbul Biennial (1987; the 18th of 2025–27), the Istanbul Modern (2004; Renzo Piano's building of 2023), the Istanbul Book Fair (the 42nd of December 2025); the "Kedi" of 2016; the Turkish-German cinema |
| The faiths' marks | Hagia Sophia (537–1453 the cathedral, 1453–1934 the mosque, 1934–2020 the museum, a mosque since 24 July 2020 — the Council of State's ruling and the world's protest both stated, LAW 2), the Sultanahmet (1616) and the Süleymaniye (1557), the Selimiye of Edirne (1575; Sinan's "masterpiece"), the Çamlıca mosque (2019; the largest), the Great Mosque of Divriği (1229), Konya's Alaeddin mosque (1221) and the Mevlana tomb (the Sema of 17 December), the Hacıbektaş lodge, the Eyüp Sultan tomb, the Seven Churches of Revelation, the Council of Nicaea's İznik (325; the Pope's 28 November 2025), the House of the Virgin Mary at Ephesus (the three popes' visits), the cave church of St Peter at Antioch (the first "Christians"), the Cappadocian rock churches and the underground cities of Derinkuyu, the Sümela monastery (386; the cliff of Trabzon), the Mor Gabriel of 397, the Armenian cathedral of Akdamar (921) and Ani's ruins, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Phanar (Bartholomew I; the Halki seminary shut since 1971), the Neve Shalom synagogue and the Ahrida of Balat, the Sephardic 1492 welcome; the Alevi cemevis' legal question, the Diyanet's 90,000 mosques, the laicism of Article 2; the Pope's four visits (1967, 1979, 2006, 2014) and Leo XIV's of 2025; Nicholas of Myra the Santa Claus; the Mevlevi Sema and the Alevi Semah of the ICH (2008, 2010) |
| The economic records | The lira's fall — 1.5 to the dollar in 2010, 49 in 2026 (the 97% lost; the six zeros of 2005 before it: 1,650,000 old lira to the dollar in 2001 — the world's least valuable currency of 1995–2004 by the Guinness line); the inflation peaks of 85.5% (October 2022) and 75.45% (May 2024) and the 1994 and 2001 crises' 100%-plus; the policy rate's 8.5% of February 2023 and 50% of March 2024 thirteen months apart; the reserves' record US$218.2 billion (30 January 2026); the 16th economy by nominal GDP and the 11th–13th by PPP; the world's first in hazelnuts, apricots, figs and cherries, the seventh in steel (38.1 million metric tons of 2025), the top five in cement, ceramics and glass, the first in marble and boron, Europe's first in white goods and TV sets, among the top in jewelry exports by the count; Turkish Airlines' 133 countries (the most of any airline) and 92.6 million passengers; the Istanbul Airport's 84.44 million; the 63.94 million tourists of 2025 (the fourth most-visited country) and US$65.23 billion; the defense exports' US$10.56 billion (the TB2 the best-selling drone of the decade by the claim); the exports' US$273.4 billion record; the public debt's 23.7% of GDP (among Europe's lowest); the minimum wage's 27% rise of 2026 and the hunger line above it; the BIST's record 15,205 (May 2026); the KKM's ₺3.4 trillion; the 2023 earthquake's US$100 billion; the EYT's 2.3 million retirees in one law; the US$50 billion week of March 2025 and the US$55 billion war-month of 2026 of reserve defense |
| The straits and the Montreux rule | The Bosphorus — 31 km from the Black Sea to the Marmara, 700 m wide at Anadoluhisarı–Rumelihisarı and 3.5 km at the mouth, 110 m deep, the currents of two layers (the surface's Black Sea water out, the Mediterranean's salt in below); the Dardanelles 61 km and 1.2 km at the narrowest (Çanakkale–Kilitbahir; Leander's and Byron's swim, the Hellespont of Xerxes's bridge of 480 BCE); the Montreux Convention of 20 July 1936 — the free passage of the merchant ships, the limits on the warships of the non-Black Sea states (21 days, 45,000 tons), the closure in war (Article 19 invoked on 28 February 2022 against the Russian and Ukrainian navies); the traffic of 84,640 ships in 2025 (the Bosphorus 40,172, the Dardanelles 44,468 — the record; the tankers of the Caspian oil, the 3% of the world's seaborne oil), the Nassia collision and fire of 13 March 1994 (29 dead) that brought the traffic separation of 1994 and the radar of 2003; the Istanbul Canal of 45 km the plan to bypass it (2021's foundation; dormant); the bridges' three spans and the two tunnels under; the ferries of 1851; the Bosphorus's yalıs and the Rumeli Hisarı of 1452; the Black Sea's Sakarya gas and the TurkStream pipe beneath; the "Blue Homeland" (Mavi Vatan) doctrine of the eastern Mediterranean's 462,000 km² claim — the Greek and Cypriot line against it stated |
| The wildlife's records | The Anatolian leopard (the few survivors of the Taurus and the east on the camera traps of 2019–25; the shot one of 2013), the brown bears of the Kaçkar, the striped hyena of the southeast (the Mediterranean's last), the Caspian tiger extinct (the last of 1970 at Uludere), the Anatolian lion of the Roman arenas gone by the 1870s, the Eurasian lynx, the caracal, the gray wolf of the emblem, the wild boar of the hunts, the Anatolian wild sheep (the Konya reserve), the chamois of the Black Sea; the Van cat (the odd eyes; the 1992 breeding house), the Angora cat and goat (the mohair), the Kangal (the shepherd's mastiff; the state's breed), the Akbaş, the bald ibis of Birecik (the 300 of the semi-wild colony), the flamingos of Tuz and the Gediz delta, the pelicans of Manyas, the storks of the Bosphorus migration (the 1 million raptors and storks of the autumn count at Çamlıca), the loggerhead turtles of İztuzu, Belek and Patara (the Mediterranean's main nesting beaches), the Mediterranean monk seal of Foça (about 100 of the Mediterranean's 700), the bluefin tuna of the Aegean farms, the Black Sea dolphins; the 10,000 plant species (a third endemic — the world's richest temperate flora by the claim; the tulips' 15 wild species, the snowdrops, the Lebanon cedars of the Taurus), the 54 national parks, the 14 Ramsar sites, the 23.4 million hectares of forest; the stray dogs' 4 million and the law of 2024; the Istanbul cats' 100,000-plus |
| The small and the strange | The evil-eye bead (nazar boncuğu) of the glassmakers of İzmir's Görece on every door, car and baby; the tulip that went from Istanbul to Amsterdam; the turkey bird named for the country by the English of the 1500s (the Turks call it "hindi", the Indian bird); the Angora cat, goat and rabbit of Ankara's old name; the "Kedi" cats of Istanbul with their own film and the city's cat houses; the çay in the tulip glass at 3.5 kg a year; the Turkish coffee's grounds read; the kolonya of the bus; the Ramadan drummer; the Cappadocia balloons (150 at every dawn — the world's busiest balloon sky; the fairy chimneys of the Star Wars-like valleys), the Star Wars never shot there despite the tale, "Ghost Rider 2" and "Skyfall" (the Grand Bazaar motorcycle chase of 2012) were; the Istanbul Airport's "largest terminal"; the whirling dervishes of Konya on 17 December; the Kırkpınar's olive oil (two tons a year); the ships hauled over the hills of Galata in 1453; the Trojan horse of the Çanakkale seafront (the "Troy" film's prop); the Maiden's Tower of Istanbul's legends; the Galata Bridge's fishermen; the simit sellers' trays; the doner's 7 million a day in Germany; the Uzunköprü of 174 arches; the lira's 1,000,000 note of 1995 (the "millionaires" of the 1990s); the dotless ı of the keyboards; the "inşallah" of every plan; the "Türkiye" spelling fight of 2022 with the world's keyboards |
| The disasters' marks | The earthquakes — Erzincan 1939 (about 33,000), Varto 1966 (2,500), Gediz 1970 (1,000), Lice 1975 (2,300), Erzurum-Kars 1983 (1,300), Erzincan 1992 (650), İzmit 17 August 1999 (17,479/18,373 — both stated), Düzce 1999 (845), Bingöl 2003, Van 2011 (604), Elazığ 2020 (41), İzmir 2020 (117), KAHRAMANMARAŞ 2023 (53,537 by the ministry — the republic's deadliest), the Marmara 2025 (none), Sındırgı 2025 (two); the mines — Zonguldak 1992 (263), Soma 2014 (301 — the deadliest), Amasra 2022 (42); the fires — Kartalkaya 2025 (78), the Ankara train crash of 2018 (nine), the Pamukova train of 2004 (41); the floods — Kastamonu 2021 (82), Hatay 2026 (three); the attacks — the Ankara station bombing of 10 October 2015 (109), Atatürk airport 2016 (45), Reina 2017 (39), Suruç 2015 (33), the Istanbul bombings of 2003 (57), Güvenpark 2016 (37), the coup attempt of 2016 (253), Istiklal 2022 (six), TUSAŞ 2024 (five), the Yalova raid 2025 (three police); the plane crashes — the Isparta of 2007 (57), the C-130 of 2025 (20); the Nassia tanker fire of 1994 (29); the political killings — Taksim 1977 (34), Maraş 1978 (about 100), Sivas 1993 (33), the Dink murder of 2007; the 1955 pogrom, the 1942 wealth tax; the 40,000 of the PKK war; the COVID's 102,000 — the state's counts and the others' both stated where they differ |
| The empires of Anatolia | The Hattians and the Hittites (about 1650–1180 BCE), the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Urartians, the Persians (546–334 BCE), Alexander and the Hellenistic kings (334–133 BCE), the Romans (133 BCE – 330 CE), the Byzantines (330–1453 — the 1,123 years of Constantinople), the Seljuks of Rum (1077–1308), the Mongol Ilkhans, the beyliks, THE OTTOMANS (1299–1922 — the 623 years of 36 sultans from Osman I to Mehmed VI; the three continents from Vienna's gates to Yemen and Algiers at the 1683 peak), the Republic (since 1923 — the 103rd year); the Armenians' Ani and Van, the Georgians' Tao, the Greeks' Ionia, Pontus and Trebizond, the Kurds' emirates, the Crusaders' Edessa and Antioch, the Genoese of Galata and Amasra, the Venetians' Aegean — the fourteen peoples of the schoolbooks' Anatolia; Troy's nine cities, Ephesus's three sites, Istanbul's three names; the Hittite peace treaty, the Lydian coin, the Byzantine Greek fire, the Ottoman cannon of 1453, the Republic's alphabet — the five inventions of the land's rulers by the line; the Ottoman dynasty's heirs at exile and the Osmanoğlu family's return (the women allowed back in 1952, the men in 1974); the "16 Turkic states" of the Presidential seal (the Huns to the Ottomans) the official genealogy — the historians' "invention" and the state's "heritage" both stated |
| The lira's long fall | The Ottoman lira of 1844 (the gold coin of 100 kuruş), the republic's paper lira of 1927 (Atatürk's face since; the İsmet İnönü notes of 1938–50 the only interruption), the 2.8 to the dollar of 1946's first devaluation, the 9 of 1960, the 14 of 1970, the 70 of 1980, the 2,600 of 1990, the 45,000 of 1995 (the 1,000,000-lira note — the world's "millionaires"), the 625,000 of 2000, the 1,650,000 of 2001's crisis, THE REDENOMINATION OF 1 JANUARY 2005 (the six zeros cut; the "new lira" to 2009), the 1.3 of 2008, the 1.5 of 2010, the 1.9 of 2013, the 3.0 of 2016, the 5.3 of 2018 (the August crisis's 7), the 5.9 of 2019, the 7.4 of 2020, the 13.3 of 2021 (the December crash to 18), the 18.7 of 2022, the 29.5 of 2023, the 35.3 of 2024, the 42.96 of 2025, the 49 of 2 October 2026 (the record low 49.14) — the dollar's thirtyfold rise in 20 years; the kuruş coins of today worth less than the metal; the KKM protected deposits of 2021–25 (the ₺3.4 trillion peak) that cost the Treasury and the Bank US$100 billion-odd by the counts; the "two zeros" of a new redenomination the periodic rumor the Bank denies; the symbol ₺ of 2012 (the design contest's); the Central Bank's 5% target of 2006 never reached — the "stability" of the Şimşek program's line and the "the wage's 97% lost" of the unions' both stated (LAW 2) |
| The last and the next | The last presidential and parliamentary elections 14 and 28 May 2023, the last local 31 March 2024, the last referendum 16 April 2017, the last coup attempt 15 July 2016, the last execution 1984 (the death penalty abolished 2004), the last cabinet reshuffle 11 February 2026, the last Central Bank decision 10 September 2026 (37% held), the last inflation print 3 September 2026 (31.51%; the September figure due 5 October), the last budget 16 October 2025 (2026's), the last Medium-Term Program 6 September 2026, the last World Heritage listing 12 July 2025 (Sardis), the last national park 31 August 2026 (Van's Deveboynu), the last World Cup match 25 June 2026 (United States 2–3), the last national team match 2 October 2026 (Belgium 3–0), the last Süper Lig title 9 May 2026 (Galatasaray's 26th), the last Kırkpınar 5 July 2026 (Erkan Taş), the last NATO summit 7–8 July 2026 (Ankara), the last major earthquake 27 October 2025 (Sındırgı M6.1), the last PKK law 10 August 2026; the next — the September CPI of 5 October 2026, the Nations League's Italy of 5 October, the 2027 budget bill by 17 October, the S&P review of 16 October, the Central Bank's 22 October, the Euro 2032 venues of October, COP31 at Antalya of 9–20 November 2026, the İmamoğlu espionage hearing of 23 December, the Court of Cassation's CHP ruling, the National Security Council's disarmament report, the Akkuyu start-up by the year's end, the Osman Gazi platform, the Ankara–İzmir YHT of 2027, the World Heritage session at Istanbul of 27 June – 7 July 2027, the Turkish Grand Prix of 1–3 October 2027, the presidential and parliamentary elections by May 2028 (the renewal question), the local elections of 25 March 2029 — the state's and the opposition's readings of each both stated (LAW 2) |
Frequently asked questions
What is the official name of Türkiye (Turkey)?
The Republic of Türkiye — Türkiye Cumhuriyeti in Turkish, the name the United Nations has registered since 1 June 2022 at Ankara's request (the circular of December 2021 that asked the world to drop "Turkey"); the transcontinental state of Anatolia and East Thrace between the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean, proclaimed a republic on 29 October 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk after the Ottoman sultanate of 1299–1922; a unitary presidential republic under the constitution of 1982 as amended by the referendum of 16 April 2017 (the presidential system in force since 9 July 2018); the demonym Turkish, the people Turks (Türkler); the UN's founder member of 24 October 1945, NATO's since 18 February 1952, the Council of Europe's since 1950, the OECD's since 1961, the G20's; the "Turkey" of the English since the 14th century kept in the brackets of this page by owner order.
What is the capital of Türkiye (Turkey)?
Ankara — the capital since 13 October 1923 (the law of the Grand National Assembly two weeks before the republic), the Angora of the Galatians, the Romans and the wool, on the Anatolian plateau at 938 m, 5,910,320 people in its province by the count of 31 December 2025 (the second city); the seat of the President (the Presidential Complex at Beştepe of 2014), the Grand National Assembly (the Meclis of 1961 on the Atatürk Boulevard), the Constitutional Court and the ministries, Anıtkabir (Atatürk's mausoleum of 1953) on its hill; Istanbul the largest city and the old capital of three empires (Byzantium, Constantinople, the Ottomans' from 1453 to 1922) — 15,754,053 people at the 2025 count, 18.3% of the country, the Bosphorus between its European and Asian shores; İzmir (4.50 million), Bursa (3.26 million) and Antalya (2.78 million) the next; Esenboğa the capital's airport (1955).
How big is Türkiye (Turkey), and how many people live there?
783,562 km² (302,535 sq mi) by the common count (783,356 by another) — the 36th country of the world by area, 97% of it in Asia (Anatolia) and 3% in Europe (East Thrace), about a quarter of India's area, 2.3 times Rajasthan's and 528 times Delhi's — with about 7,200 km of coast on four seas and the land borders of eight neighbors (2,648 km by one count, 2,949 km by another — both stated); 86,092,168 people at the address-based count of 31 December 2025 (TÜİK, published 9 February 2026; 85,664,944 a year before — the growth of 5.0 per thousand), about 110 per km² of the whole area and 112 by TÜİK's land-area line — both stated; 93.6% in the province and district centers by the 2025 count; the 18th most populous country; Istanbul's 15.75 million nearly a fifth of the whole, the Marmara region about 30%; the fertility 1.42 children per woman in 2025 (TÜİK, May 2026) and the median age 34.9; the diaspora of about 6.5 million by the counts, Germany's 3.08 million of Turkish background the largest; 2,264,983 Syrians under temporary protection on 25 June 2026 by the Interior Ministry's count.
What are the highest and lowest points of Türkiye (Turkey)?
Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı) — 5,137 m (16,854 ft), the dormant volcano of the eastern corner on the lines of Armenia and Iran (the Ark's mountain of the Genesis tradition; first climbed on 9 October 1829 by Friedrich Parrot and Khachatur Abovian; Little Ararat 3,896 m beside it), the Cilo-Sat's Uludoruk 4,135 m of Hakkari, Süphan 4,058 m above Lake Van, the Kaçkar 3,937 m of the Black Sea range and Erciyes 3,917 m over Kayseri the next; the lowest point sea level on the four seas' coasts (the Black Sea, the Marmara, the Aegean and the Mediterranean; the Dead Sea-type depressions absent — Lake Van itself sits at 1,640 m); the Kızılırmak (1,355 km, the longest river entirely in the country, from Sivas's İmranlı to the Black Sea at Bafra) and the Euphrates and the Tigris that rise in the east (1,230 km of the Euphrates's 2,800 inside the border; the Atatürk Dam of 1990 and the GAP's 22 dams); Lake Van 3,755 km² the largest lake, the salt Lake Tuz 1,665 km² the second; the coast of about 7,200 km from the Bulgarian line at Rezovo to the Syrian at Samandağ.
What currency does Türkiye (Turkey) use?
The Turkish lira (ISO code TRY; ₺ by the symbol of 2012; TL), of 100 kuruş, issued by the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (the TCMB of 1930; Governor Fatih Karahan since 3 February 2024) — about 49 to the U.S. dollar (the Bank's indicative rate 48.97/49.06 on 2 October 2026; 41.6 a year before, 35.3 at the start of 2025, 42.96 at the end of it) and about 55 to the euro (55.08/55.18), about 2 Indian rupees to the lira by the cross rates of 2 October (0.51 lira to the rupee); the policy rate 37% since 23 January 2026 (the one-week repo cut from 38% on 22 January; the 46% of April 2025 and the 50% of March 2024 before it), held at the five meetings of 12 March, 22 April, 11 June, 23 July and 10 September 2026 (the next 22 October); the inflation 31.51% in August 2026 (the September print due on 5 October; the peaks of 85.5% in October 2022 and 75.45% in May 2024; the Bank's 28% forecast for the end of 2026 and 15% for 2027); the gross reserves US$171.2 billion on 25 September 2026 (the record US$218.2 billion of 30 January 2026 before the Iran war's US$55 billion of defense); the redenomination of 1 January 2005 that cut six zeros (1 new lira = 1,000,000 old); the notes of 5 to 200 lira with Atatürk on every face; the minimum wage ₺28,075 net a month for 2026 (the 27% rise of 23 December 2025).
Who governs Türkiye (Turkey)?
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — born 26 February 1954 at Istanbul's Kasımpaşa, the mayor of Istanbul of 1994–98, the founder of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of 14 August 2001, Prime Minister from 14 March 2003 to 28 August 2014, President since 28 August 2014 (the first directly elected), re-elected on 24 June 2018 under the presidential system and on 28 May 2023 in the republic's first runoff (52.18% over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's 47.82%; sworn in on 3 June 2023) — the head of state and of the executive since the prime minister's office was abolished on 9 July 2018; Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz (since 4 June 2023) and the cabinet of 17 ministers (Foreign Hakan Fidan, Treasury and Finance Mehmet Şimşek, Defense Yaşar Güler, Interior Mustafa Çiftçi and Justice Akın Gürlek since the reshuffle of 11 February 2026); the Grand National Assembly of 600 (Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş) elected on 14 May 2023 — by the count of 14 August 2026 the AKP 280 with the MHP's 46, the Yeni Parti of Özgür Özel 91 (the 91 deputies who left the CHP on 24 July 2026 after the court ruling of 21 May that reinstated Kılıçdaroğlu — the main opposition since), the DEM 56, the CHP 44, the İYİ 27; the next presidential and parliamentary elections due by May 2028 (the 7 May and 14 May dates both carried by the lists), the local of 2029 — the state's "the people's mandate" and the opposition's "the courts against the ballot" readings both stated (LAW 2).
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