Türkiye (Turkey)

Türkiye is a big country.

It has seas on three sides. Most of Türkiye is in Asia. A small part is in Europe. The capital city is called Ankara. Some people call the country Turkey.

Türkiye, also called Turkey, is a country that sits on two continents. Nearly all of it is in Asia, on a wide piece of land called Anatolia. A small part, called Turkish Thrace, is in the southeastern corner of Europe. Between them runs the Bosporus, a narrow strip of sea.

The Black Sea lies to the north, and the Aegean and Mediterranean seas lie to the west and south. Türkiye is mostly mountains and high plains. Its capital is Ankara, and its biggest city is Istanbul. About 86 million people live in Türkiye.

Türkiye lies at the crossroads of the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. Nearly all of its territory is in Asia: the oblong peninsula of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, plus part of a mountainous region in the east sometimes called the Armenian Highland. The rest, Turkish Thrace, lies in the extreme southeast of Europe. Britannica notes that its land area is greater than that of any European state; Wikidata gives about 783,600 square kilometers.

The country stretches about 1,600 km from west to east and 480 to 640 km from north to south. About three-quarters of its boundary is coastline, along the Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas and the Turkish Straits. The United Nations adopted "Türkiye" as its preferred name in 2022, at the Turkish government's request; "Turkey" is still widely used in English. Its population was about 85.9 million in 2025 (World Bank).

Istanbul is the biggest city in Türkiye.

Part of it is in Europe and part is in Asia. Boats sail through the middle. Hagia Sophia is a very old building with a huge round roof.

Istanbul is Türkiye's biggest city, home to about 15.7 million people (2023). It is built on both sides of the Bosporus, so part of the city is in Europe and part is in Asia. Long ago it was called Constantinople. Hagia Sophia, finished in the year 537, was a church, then a mosque, then a museum, and it is a mosque again today.

Ankara, the capital, was a small town before it became the capital in 1923. On the west coast, at Ephesus, you can walk among the ruins of a Roman port city, including the tall front of the Library of Celsus.

Istanbul spans the Bosporus: the strait divides European Istanbul from its Asian districts, such as Üsküdar and Kadıköy. Founded as Byzantium, it was dedicated as the Roman capital, New Rome, by Constantine the Great in 330 CE and later served as capital of both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Its historic areas, including the 6th-century Hagia Sophia and the 16th-century Süleymaniye Mosque, were inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1985. Hagia Sophia, built in 532–537, has been a church, a mosque (1453–1935), a museum (1935–2020) and, since 2020, a mosque again.

Ankara was one of many small provincial towns until Mustafa Kemal made it the center of the resistance after World War I; it was declared the capital in 1923. Ephesus, a World Heritage Site since 2015, preserves Hellenistic and Roman settlements that moved westward as the coastline retreated, with the Library of Celsus and the Great Theatre. In Edirne, Sinan, the most famous 16th-century Ottoman architect, considered the Selimiye Mosque complex his best work.

Türkiye has lots of mountains.

The highest one is Mount Ararat. Its top has snow. In the middle of the country there are wide, high plains. At Pamukkale, warm spring water has made white stone steps.

Türkiye is a land of mountains. Only a thin strip near the coast is low and flat. The highest peak, Mount Ararat, is a volcanic mountain more than 5,100 meters tall, near the borders with Armenia and Iran. Its top is covered in snow.

In the middle is the Anatolian plateau, high plains about 900 meters above the sea, with cold winters and hot, dry summers. The ground here is still being folded into mountains, so earthquakes happen often. At Pamukkale, warm water full of minerals flows down a cliff and leaves white terraces, like frozen waterfalls.

Türkiye is predominantly mountainous: true lowland is confined to the coastal fringes, and about a quarter of the surface lies above 1,200 m. It sits in the geologically young folded-mountain zone of Eurasia, where faulting and folding are widespread and mountain building is still in progress, which makes it prone to earthquakes. The Pontic Mountains run along the Black Sea and the Taurus along the Mediterranean; Mount Ararat, a volcanic massif in the far east, is the highest peak (Britannica gives 5,165 m; Wikidata gives 5,137 m).

The climate is a dry, semicontinental variant of the Mediterranean type. The Black Sea coast is the wettest region, up to 2,438 mm of rain a year in the east, while much of the interior gets only 305–406 mm and Ankara averages about −2 °C in January. At Hierapolis-Pamukkale, a World Heritage Site since 1988, calcite-laden water from springs in a cliff almost 200 m high has built terraced basins and petrified waterfalls.

Wolves and bears live in Türkiye's quiet forests and hills.

Foxes and wild boars live there too. On farms, people keep sheep, cattle and water buffalo.

Türkiye has many wild animals. In quiet, wooded places you can still find wolves, foxes, wild boars, bears, deer, gazelles and wild mountain goats. Gray wolves live and hunt in family groups called packs, and they are the largest members of the dog family.

Farmers keep sheep, cattle, horses and donkeys, plus water buffalo and, on the central plateau, Angora goats. The Bosporus is busy with fish too: it is a route that fish follow each season between the Black Sea and the seas to the south.

Britannica describes Türkiye as fairly rich in wild animals and game birds: wolves, foxes, boars, wildcats, beavers, martens, jackals, hyenas, bears, deer, gazelles and mountain goats are still found in secluded and wooded regions, and partridge, wild geese, quail and bustards are the main game birds. The gray wolf (Canis lupus) is the largest member of the dog family; males weigh 30–80 kg. Brown bears (Ursus arctos) live across Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and in winter they can spend four to six months asleep in dens.

The Bosporus is heavily fished because it is a seasonal migration route for fish moving to and from the Black Sea. Its surface current runs from the Black Sea toward the Sea of Marmara, while a saltier countercurrent below flows the other way. Domestic animals include water buffalo, Angora goats on the central massif and camels in the southwest.

About 86 million people live in Türkiye.

Most people speak Turkish. Many people also speak Kurdish. Eggplant, olives and yogurt are popular foods. Friends often meet for a small cup of coffee.

About 86 million people live in Türkiye, and about three in every four live in towns and cities. Turkish is the official language and the first language of most people. Many people speak Kurdish, and others speak Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Laz and other languages.

Most people are Muslim, and there are smaller Christian and Jewish communities; the country has no official religion. Eggplant, olives and yogurt are widely eaten, and arrays of small hot and cold appetizers are typical of cooking across the region. Turkish coffee is brewed slowly in a coffee pot and served in small cups with a glass of water.

About three-fourths of Türkiye's people live in towns and cities, and the coasts of the Black Sea, Marmara and Aegean, with less than two-fifths of the land, hold more than half the population. Turkish is the official language and most people's mother tongue; most of the rest speak Kurdish as a first language, and a small minority Arabic. Britannica notes that Kurds were estimated at the start of the 21st century to be almost one-fifth of the population, with majorities in several eastern provinces.

More than nine-tenths of the population is Muslim, yet the state is secular: a 1928 constitutional amendment removed Islam as the official religion. Small Jewish and Christian communities also live there. Food shares much with the wider region: eggplant, olives and yogurt are widely eaten, lamb is the staple meat, and arrays of small hot and cold appetizers are characteristic. Turkish coffee culture, in which finely ground coffee is brewed slowly to a foam and shared in coffeehouses as a sign of hospitality, was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2013.