Turkey

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Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), officially the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Southwestern Asia and the Balkan region of Southeastern Europe. Turkey borders eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Iran and the Nakhichevan exclave of Azerbaijan to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. In addition, it borders the Black Sea to the north; the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara to the west; and the Mediterranean Sea to the south.

Turkey is a democratic, secular, constitutional republic whose political system was established in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of national hero Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It is a founding member of the United Nations, the OIC, the OECD and the OSCE, a member state of the Council of Europe since 1949 and of the NATO since 1952, and is currently in accession negotiations with the European Union, being an associate member since 1964..

Due to its strategic location straddling Europe and Asia, Turkey has been a historical crossroad between eastern and western cultures.

Etymology

The Turkish name for Turkey, Türkiye, subdivides into two words: Türk, means "strong" in Old Turkic and usually signifies the habitants of Turkey or a member of the Turkish nation; and the possessive suffix -iye, which means "owner" or "related to". The root appears commonly among early Altaic tribal ethnonyms, and also appears notably in the name of Turkmenistan. The term "Türk" or "Türük" predates this by a long way, an example being the Göktürks (Sky Turks).

History

Anatolia is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world, because of its strategic location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. The earliest Neolithic settlements such as Çatalhöyük (Pottery Neolithic), Çayönü (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to pottery Neolithic), Nevali Cori (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B), Hacilar (Pottery Neolithic), Göbekli Tepe (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) and Mersin are considered as the earliest human settlements in the world. The settlement of Troy starts in the Neolithic and continues forward into the Iron Age. Through recorded history, Anatolians have spoken Indo-European, Semitic and Kartvelian languages, as well as many languages of uncertain affiliation. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical center from which the Indo-European languages have radiated. Other authors have proposed an Anatolian origin for the Etruscans of ancient Italy.

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