The Turkey guide
Everything you need to know about Turkey, all in one place
Turkey is the country either side of the straits: eighty-one provinces spread over two continents, a high plateau ringed by mountains, and a coast that runs from the Black Sea round to the Aegean. Learn the shape of it, the facts that make daily life legible from Istanbul to Gaziantep, and the first hundred words of the language the alphabet was rewritten for in 1928.
Turkey ยท Facts
Read it, then make it stick
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Geography of Turkey
A high plateau ringed by mountains, with the Black Sea above it, the Mediterranean below it and the Aegean on its western side. The straits at Istanbul cut the country in two and are the only sea route out of the Black Sea.
Turkey ยท Maps
Know the shape of the country
Three maps of Turkey itself, drawn from the same files the rounds are played on. The eighty-one provinces are the frame everything else sits in; the cities and the water that has decided who held this land go inside it.
Pick a map. It opens and plays right here.
Turkey ยท Words
Take Turkish with you
Lesson 1 of 10
Greetings and politeness
Hello, thanks, please: the ten openers everything else builds on.
Explore more country maps
Keep going one country deeper
When you have had your fill of Turkey, every country here has maps of its own.