Türkiye,¹Κύπρος (Kýpros),² Kıbrıs,³ British Cypriot Sovereign Base Areas (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)

How is the land laid out?

Turkey consists of three sections: European Turkey--part of Thrace; the Anatolian⁴ Peninsula; and the mountainous east. Thrace is separated from Anadolu (Anatolia) by the Turkish straits: the Canakkale,⁵ the Sea of Marmara and the Kara Sea Strait.⁶

Turkish Thrace divides in three: the lowlands of the Ergene⁷ River, mostly in the middle; the highlands of the south that taper to the Gelibolu⁸ Peninsula; and the Yildiz Mountains in the north that point toward the Bosporus.

Asian Turkey consists of a central plateau surrounded by mountains that in places reach the sea. Where that does not happen there are narrow plains, generally parallel to the Black Sea coast and perpendicular to the Aegean. In a circle from the northwest some features and areas are: Bithynia about the east end of the Sea of Marmara; Paphlagonia by the northward bulge into the Black Sea; Pontus near the eastern shore of the Black Sea; the headwaters of the Aras⁹ in the northeast; Mount Agri¹⁰ south of the Aras; Lake Van in the southeast overshadowed by Mount Suphan;¹¹ Mount Cilo¹² in the southeast; the source of the Dicle¹³ just west of the Vannic area; the junction of two rivers--at a reservoir not far west of the start of the Tigris--which form the Firat;¹⁴ the mouth of the Asi;¹⁵ the Gulf of Korfezi;¹⁶ Cilicia and Pamphylia south of the Toros¹⁷ Mountains that bound the south center of the plateau; Lycia marking a bulge southward, west of Pamphylia; Caria to its northwest and reaching the Aegean; Lydia farther north; and Mysia southwest of Bithynia.

The plateau includes Phrygia in the west; Galatia south of Paphlagonia; Pisidia north of Pamphylia; Lycaonia south of Tuz Lake; and Cappadocia east of the lake.

The island of Cyprus lies south of the peninsula and is divided into two republics and a British military enclave.

Who lives there?

More than eight in ten of the 76 million living here speak Turkish, about one in fourteen speak Kurdish¹⁸ and the rest a variety of languages.

Almost everyone in Turkey is Moslem--at least eight in ten Sunni, the rest Alawi¹⁹ Shi'ites.

There are numerous World Heritage Sites:

Name	Location
Archaeological Site of Troy	Türkiye
Choirokoitia	Κύπρος (Kýpros)
City of Safranbolu	Türkiye
Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia	Türkiye
Great Mosque and Hospital of Divriği	Türkiye
Hattusha: the Hittite Capital	Türkiye
Heirapolis-Pamukkale	Türkiye
Historic Sites of Istanbul	Türkiye
Nemrut Dağ	Türkiye
Painted Churches of the Troodos Region	Κύπρος (Kýpros)
Paphos	Κύπρος (Kýpros)
Xanthos-Letoon (at Kinik)	Türkiye

There is a oil port at Ceyhan-Limani.

Besides near İstanbul, there are international airports at Bodrum, Dalaman, Larnaka and Pafos and near Lefkoşa (Lefosia).

Agia Napa on Cyprus is a resort area as is the harbor of Beyramkale (Beyram, Assos). For quite different reasons tourists visit the site of the notorious World War I battle of Gallipoli (Gelibolu).

See Table of Turkish and Cypriot Cities

Map

Who was there before?

Almost four thousand years ago speakers of the oldest written Indo-European²² language, Hittite²³ gained political ascendency north of Cappadocia. Perhaps they had migrated from north of the Black Sea where other Indo-Europeans are generally thought to have originated. In that same millenium other Anatolian languages were spoken: Luwian in Lycia and Palaic in the peninsula's north. To the southeast Hurrian, a Northwest Caucasian language, was spoken by the Mitanni and Urartu.

The languages of contemporaries like the Arazwa (in Pamphylia) are unknown. The Phrygians spoke a non-Anatolian language considered to be Indo-European by some scholars.

In the next millenium two new Anatolian languages evolved: Lycian (from Luwian) and Lydian;²⁴ and other Indo-Europeans showed up: Greeks,²⁵ Armenians,²⁶ Kurds and--with less lasting influence: Medes, Persians²⁷ and Romans.

West Semites also showed up: Phoenicians²⁸ in Cyprus and Aramaic speakers. The latter's local importance was as a second language and later as the language of local Christians. It split into West Aramaic--the norm--and East Aramaic in the northeast.

The old languages of Bithynia, Lycaonia and Pisidia are unknown.

Two important deities in the first millenium B.C.E. were Cybele, the Great Mother, and Sabazius.²⁹ The Greeks embraced the Anatolian religions, both by importing (Dionysius) and reinterpreting foreign deities as analogs of their own gods or goddesses.

In the first millenium C.E. Greek became the first language of the peninsula except in Pisidia. Farther east Aramaic--both varieties, Armenian and Kurdish persisted. On the coast at the east end of the Black Sea, Laz³⁰ was spoken.

In this millenium, when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity so did their subjects. Hold outs were murdered. But then internal divisions within Christianity--especially over the use of icons--led to further hate wars and flights of dissidents eastward.

The second millenium C.E. saw the ascendency of the Turks who had begun arriving a century earlier. The 20th century saw the end of the Greek language there³¹ with one and a half million refugees leaving leaving Turkey, and an even more horrible end to the Armenians,³² with some unknown number--perhaps a million--murdered in the northeast. More Turks and other Moslems entered Turkey in the closing centuries of the millenium as Christians conquered the European and Caucasian lands they had ruled. Most of the non-Turkish Moslems switched to the national language as time and generations passed.

With the Turks came the end of local Christianity³³ and its replacement by Islam. Islam itself was transformed by Turks with the introduction and eventual acceptance and spread of local Sufi cults.

Around Asian Turkey

Around European Turkey:

Footnotes

1. Turkey in English in Turkish.
2. Cyprus (Greek) in English.
3. Cyprus (Turkish) in English.
4. Anatolia is Anadolu in Turkish. Also called Asia Minor.
5. The Dardanelles in English. Strait in Turkish is Bogazi.
6. The Bosporus in English. Also called the Istanbul Strait. Sea in Turkish is deniz.
7. The Ergene flows into the Meriç. It is called Έβρος (Evros) in Greek and Mapицa (Maritsa) in Bulgarian.
8. Gallipoli in English.
9. Araz in Azeri.
10. Ararat in English. It is over 5000 meters tall.
11. Also called Uludoruk. It is over 4000 meters tall.
12. Over 4000 meters tall.
13. Tigris in English and Dijlah in transliterated Arabic.
14. Euphrates in English and Furat in transliterated Arabic.
15. Orontes in English and 'Asi in transliterated Arabic.
16. Alexandretta in English.
17. Taurus in English.
18. The Kurmanji dialect.
19. Also called Alevi.
20. Formerly called Constantinople and Byzantium, though these apply to the European part of the city only.
21. Formerly Smyrna.
22. Some scholars prefer the term Indo-Hittite and reserve Indo-European for a sub-group that does not include Hittite.
23. This is not the name they gave their language. Hatti, a non-Indo-European language, is not related except for being spoken in what became the heart of the Hittite Empire.
24. Certainly by this period, perhaps earlier, Carian, another Anatolian language, was used in Caria.
25. They arrived in the Aegean coast and in Cyprus more than 3000 years ago.
26. Their language relates to languages spoken in the Balkans, so perhaps they moved west to east, but physical evidence for this hypothetical migration has not yet been found.
27. Among other Iranian groups.
28. Speaking Punic, part of the Punic-Hebrew dialect group.
29. Dionysius in Greek.
30. Then part of a dialect continuum of Mingrelian-Laz. It is related to Georgian, a South Caucasian (Karvelian) language.
31. About 4000 speakers remains in Thrace. Cyprus is mostly Greek speaking.
32. About 40,000 speakers remain.
33. Cyprus is mostly Christian.