Turkey

Turkey is a transcontinental country and shares borders with eight countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Iran, Iraq and Syria. It borders the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean Sea to the west and the Mediterranean partially to the south. The Turkish Straits in the north separate Europe from Asia.

 

Turkey is the world’s 37th largest country covering 783,562 square kilometres. The European area of Turkey is known as East Thrace and covers 23,764 square kilometres while the rest of the country lies in the Asian section known as Anatolia.

 

There are mountainous regions to the east of the country where the rivers Euphrates, Tigris and Aras have their source. Turkey’s highest point is Mount Ararat standing at 5,165m.

 

Due to its location on a fault line, Turkey is susceptible to levels of seismic activity with relatively frequent earthquakes and less frequent volcanic eruptions. The last major earthquake in the country was in 1999.

 

Turkey is divided into seven census regions: Marmara, Aegean, Black Sea, Central Anatolia, Southeastern Anatolia and Mediterranean. Each region is sub-divided into administrative areas to form a total of 923 districts.