Turkey straddles the borders of Europe and Asia with the majority of the country in Southwest Asia. It has a total area of 780,580 sq.km. that lies within Europe. The country is bordered at the east by Georgia, Armenia and Iran with Iraq, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea on the south. The Aegean Sea, Greece and Bulgaria are to the west, and the Black Sea forms the northern border. Turkey’s geographical coordinates are 36o 00′ to 42o 00′ north latitude and 26o 00′ to 45o 00′ east longitude.
Language:
The Turkish language is spread over a large geographical are in Europe and Asia; it is spoken in the Azeri, the Turkmen, the Tartar, the Uzbek, the Baskurti; the Hogay, the Kyrgyz, the Kazakh, the Yakuti, the Guvas, and other dialects. The Turkish spoken in Turkey represents that of the Turkish language group coming from the southwest branch of the Uralic-Altayic language family. The oldest written records of Turkish are found upon stone monuments in Central Asia, in the Orhun, Yenisey and Talas regions within the boundaries of present day Mongolia, and belong to the years 725, 732 and 735 A.D. After the formation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and following the achievement of national unity, Latin alphabet using Turkish phonetics was adopted in 1928.
Population:
On the general basis, the population in Turkey is characterised by youth and dynamism. According to a 1997 population census, Turkey has 62.6 million inhabitants. Although there has been a marked migration into town, approximately 47 percent of the population still lives in the rural areas. Although the official language is Turkish, English is widely spoken in Turkey. There are many high schools and universities where the curriculum is based on English, German and French are other commonly spoken foreign languages. Istanbul, which was the capital of three empires, is Turkey’s largest city, with approximately 9.1 million inhabitants. Ankara, the capital city, has 3.69 million in habitants. The next largest cities are Izmir, Konya and Adana.
Turkish Traditions 