(^50) About Turkey (Please refer to your favourite travel guidebook or the internet for a more in-depth
overview)
Capital City
Ankara, the second largest city after Istanbul, is the capital of Turkey.
Currency
The currency in Turkey is the Turkish lira. The sign is ₺ and the code is TRY; usually abbreviated as
TL. The currency is also used in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. One Turkish lira is
subdivided into one hundred kurus.
Language
Turkey’s official language, Turkish, is the first language spoken by 90% of the 71.1m population.
Minority languages include Kurdish, spoken by 6% of the population, although this isn't recognised
as an official language.
Religion
Turkey has been home to all three great revealed religions—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—for
centuries. However, today 99% of Turkey’s people today are Muslim.
Location and size
The Republic of Turkey consists of Anatolia (a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost
protrusion of the Asian continent) as well as a small area of eastern Thrace and a few offshore
islands in the Aegean Sea. Turkey has a total area of 780,580 sq km, extending about 1,600 km
southeast to the northeast and 650 km Northeast to Southwest. Of the overall size, 97% is in Asia,
and 3% is in Europe. Turkey lies at the important Black Sea straits system—the Dardanelles, the Sea
of Marmara, and the Bosporus. It is bordered on the North by the Black Sea, on the Northeast by
Georgia and Armenia, on the East by Iran, on the Southeast by Iraq, on the South by Syria and theMediterranean Sea, on the West by the Aegean Sea, and on the Northwest by Greece and Bulgaria.
Population
The current population of Turkey is 84 000 000 and it has a population density of 110 per Km2.
leana
(Leana)
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