DetaIled InformatIons About Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe. East Thrace, the part of Turkey in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (collectively called the Turkish Straits). Istanbul, which straddles Europe and Asia, is the largest city in the country, while Ankara is the capital. Turkey is bordered on its northwest by Greece and Bulgaria; north by the Black Sea; northeast by Georgia; east by Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran; southeast by Iraq; south by Syria and the Mediterranean Sea; and west by the Aegean Sea. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish, while Kurds are the largest minority, at between 15 to 20 percent of the population.
Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF, and the World Bank, and a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC, and G20. After becoming one of the early members of the Council of Europe in 1950, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995, and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. In a non-binding vote on 13 March 2019, the European Parliament called on the EU governments to suspend Turkey's accession talks; which, despite being stalled since 2018, remain active as of 2020. Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power and a newly industrialized state by several analysts, while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history. Turkey is a secular, unitary, formerly parliamentary republic that adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017; the new system came into effect with the presidential election in 2018. Turkey's current administration, headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP, has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam and undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press.
Turkey has a unitary structure in terms of administration and this aspect is one of the most important factors shaping the Turkish public administration. When three powers (executive, legislative and judiciary) are taken into account as the main functions of the state, local administrations have little power. Turkey does not have a federal system, and the provinces are subordinate to the central government in Ankara. Local administrations were established to provide services in place and the government is represented by the province governors (vali) and town governors (kaymakam). Other senior public officials are also appointed by the central government instead of the mayors (belediye başkanı) or elected by constituents.[126] Turkish municipalities have local legislative bodies (belediye meclisi) for decision-making on municipal issues.
Within this unitary framework, Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces (il or vilayet) for administrative purposes. Each province is divided into districts (ilçe), for a total of 922 districts. Turkey is also subdivided into 7 regions (bölge) and 21 subregions for geographic, demographic and economic purposes; this does not refer to an administrative division. The centralised structure of decision-making in Ankara is stated by some academics as an impediment to good local governance, and occasionally causes resentment in the municipalities of urban centres that are inhabited largely by ethnic minority groups, such as the Kurds. Steps towards decentralisationsince 2004 have proven to be a highly controversial topic in Turkey. The efforts to decentralise the administrative structure arealso driven by the European Charter of Local Self-Government and with Chapter 22 ("Regional Policy & Coordination of Structural Instruments") of the acquis of the European Union. A decentralisation program for Turkey has been a topic of discussion in the country's academics, politics and the broader public.
Tourism in Turkey has increased almost every year in the 21st century, and is an important part of the economy. The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism currently promotes Turkish tourism under the Turkey Home name. Turkey is one of the world's top ten destination countries, with the highest percentage of foreign visitors arriving from Germany and Russia in recent years. In 2018 Turkey ranked 6th in the world in terms of the number of international tourist arrivals, with 45.8 million foreign tourists visiting the country.
Turkey has 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", the "Rock Sites of Cappadocia", the "Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük", "Hattusa: the Hittite Capital", the "Archaeological Site of Troy", "Pergamon and its Multi-Layered Cultural Landscape", "Hierapolis – Pamukkale", and "Mount Nemrut"; and 51 World Heritage Sites in tentative list, such as the archaeological sites or historic urban centres of Göbekli Tepe, Gordion, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Perga, Lycia, Sagalassos, Aizanoi, Zeugma, Ani, Harran, Mardin, Konya and Alanya. Turkey is home to two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the world's oldest religious site Göbekli Tepe, and numerous other World Heritage Sites.