🇹🇷Turkey

Turkey, officially Türkiye, is a transcontinental nation bridging Europe and Asia across the straits of Istanbul. Heir to the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, it fuses East and West in its cuisine, architecture and identity. From the bazaars of Istanbul to the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia, it is one of the world's most visited countries.

The bulk of Turkey occupies the peninsula of Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion, Eastern Thrace, in Southeast Europe. The interior is a high plateau ringed by mountains, with coastlines on the Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The country is seismically active, sitting on major fault lines.

Turkish culture blends Central Asian Turkic roots with Anatolian, Islamic and Mediterranean influences. It is famous for its hospitality, its cuisine of kebabs, mezze and baklava, its tradition of tea and coffee, and arts ranging from carpet-weaving to whirling dervishes. Football is the dominant sport.

Anatolia has hosted civilisations for millennia, from the Hittites to the Greeks and Romans, and Constantinople, today Istanbul, was the capital of both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. After the Ottoman collapse, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the modern secular republic in 1923, reshaping the nation into a modern state.