Min and Max represent the coldest and
warmest average months on record.
| Facts Other Than Average Temperature |
|
| Climate Details | temperate; hot, dry summers with mild, wet winters; harsher in interior |
| Background | Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the Anatolian remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire by national hero Mustafa KEMAL, who was later honored with the title Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." Under his authoritarian leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal, and political reforms. After a period of one-party rule, an experiment with multi-party politics led to the 1950 election victory of the opposition Democratic Party and the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but democracy has been fractured by periods of instability and intermittent military coups (1960, 1971, 1980), which in each case eventually resulted in a return of political power to civilians. In 1997, the military again helped engineer the ouster - popularly dubbed a "post-modern coup" - of the then Islamic-oriented government. Turkey intervened militarily on Cyprus in 1974 to prevent a Greek takeover of the island and has since acted as patron state to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," which only Turkey recognizes. A separatist insurgency begun in 1984 by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - now known as the People's Congress of Kurdistan or Kongra-Gel (KGK) - has dominated the Turkish military's attention and claimed more than 30,000 lives. After the capture of the group's leader in 1999, the insurgents largely withdrew from Turkey mainly to northern Iraq. In 2004, KGK announced an end to its ceasefire and attacks attributed to the KGK increased. Turkey joined the UN in 1945 and in 1952 it became a member of NATO. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community; over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy enabling it to begin accession membership talks with the European Union. |
| Coastline | 7,200 km |
| Terrain | high central plateau (Anatolia); narrow coastal plain; several mountain ranges |
| Geographic Overview | |
| Geographic Coordinates | 39 00 N, 35 00 E |
| Elevation Extremes | |
| Natural Hazards | severe earthquakes, especially in northern Turkey, along an arc extending from the Sea of Marmara to Lake Van |
| Current Enviornmental Issues | water pollution from dumping of chemicals and detergents; air pollution, particularly in urban areas; deforestation; concern for oil spills from increasing Bosporus ship traffic |
| Environmental Agreements | |
| Agriculture Products | tobacco, cotton, grain, olives, sugar beets, pulse, citrus; livestock |
| Natural Resources | coal, iron ore, copper, chromium, antimony, mercury, gold, barite, borate, celestite (strontium), emery, feldspar, limestone, magnesite, marble, perlite, pumice, pyrites (sulfur), clay, arable land, hydropower |
| Population | 71,892,807 (July 2008 est.) |