Geography

Turkey is located in the eastern hemisphere. Its area (including inland waters) is 779,452 km². Part of the territory of Turkey - 97% - is located in Asia and 3% - in Europe. The geographical feature of Turkey is its location at the crossroads of important routes connecting the Europe and Asia with the antiquity, the Black Sea countries and peoples with the Mediterranean. Nowadays, through the territory of Turkey, there are highways and railways connecting Europe with many Asian countries.

Climate

Turkey is a country mostly mountainous, so the climate often has altitude zonality. In the central part of the climate is temperate continental with hot and dry summers and rather cold winters. On the coast of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, the climate is Mediterranean with very mild winters. On the Black Sea coast, the climate is sea with a lot of precipitation and in cool winters with rare negative temperatures. In the southeast, the climate is tropical desert with very hot summers.

Population

The main population of the country - the Turks. During the Ottoman Empire, these people used the self-name Ottomans (Tour. Osmanlı). According to the first census, in 1927, 13,464,564 people lived in the Republic of Turkey [18], of which 2,323,359 Kurds [18], 376,000 Armenians [source not specified 677 days] (mainly Islamized Armenians), Circassians, Bosnians and others. In total, 12 censuses were conducted in the country. Since 1927, the population of Turkey has grown 4.4 times, and only from 1950 to 1985 - 2.5 times. The rapid growth of the population, which exceeded 70 million people in 2005, remains an important problem of the country.

Religion

In Turkey, religion is legally separated from the state and freedom of religion is guaranteed to every resident of the country. The majority of the country's population profess Sunni Islam: Hanafi madhab and maturidism. Islamic fraternities - tariqas are also extremely developed. Basically developed Nakshbandi and Mevlevi tariffs. There are followers of the Shafi'i madhhab, mostly Kurds. There are a large number of mosques - 78,000.