Turkey
The bridge of Europe and Asia, heir to Byzantium and the Ottomans, the secular republic of Ataturk woven with a deep Muslim faith, famed for legendary hospitality, the ritual of tea, the carpet, and the whirling dervish. The complete guide.
Turkey is a large country straddling Europe and Asia, with most of its land in Asia Minor, the peninsula of Anatolia, and a small but storied corner in Europe, home to about eighty-five million people. To understand it, begin with its position as the bridge between Europe and Asia, between East and West, which has shaped its whole character; with the immense layered history of Anatolia, from the ancient civilisations through Byzantium to the great Ottoman Empire that ruled for six centuries; with the modern secular republic founded by Ataturk, who remade the nation on a Western model; with the deep tension and balance between that secularism and the Muslim faith of the great majority; with the legendary Turkish hospitality, which treats the guest as sent by God; and with the cherished rituals of tea, the table, and the bath that fill daily life. From these flow the customs that follow: the warm greeting, the shared meal, the great festivals. This guide walks through each in turn.
Overview
Turkey is a large country that lies across two continents, with the great bulk of its land forming the peninsula of Anatolia, or Asia Minor, in western Asia, and a smaller portion across the narrow straits in southeastern Europe, so that it stands at the very meeting place of the two continents. It is bordered by the Mediterranean and Aegean seas to the south and west, the Black Sea to the north, and a ring of neighbours from Greece and Bulgaria to Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. About eighty-five million people live there. The capital is Ankara, in the Anatolian heartland, but the largest city by far, and the historic heart of the nation, is Istanbul, the great city that sits astride the Bosphorus strait, with one foot in Europe and one in Asia.
Turkey is a republic, founded in 1923 from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and is today governed by a powerful president and a parliament, having moved from a parliamentary to a presidential system in recent years. The official language is Turkish, written since the founding of the republic in a modified Latin alphabet. The great majority of Turks are Muslims, overwhelmingly Sunni with a significant minority of Alevis, yet the state is constitutionally secular, a defining feature of the modern nation, and the balance between secularism and faith is one of the central themes of Turkish life. Turkey is a member of NATO and has long sought closer ties with Europe.
A few deep forces shape life in Turkey. There is its position as the bridge between Europe and Asia, East and West. There is the immense layered history of Anatolia, from the ancient world through Byzantium to the Ottomans. There is the secular republic founded by Ataturk. There is the balance between that secularism and the Muslim faith. There is the legendary Turkish hospitality. And there are the cherished rituals of tea, the table, and the bath. The sections that follow trace these forces and then walk through the customs of daily life.
The bridge of two worlds
The deepest fact about Turkey is its position as a bridge, a country that physically and culturally joins Europe and Asia, East and West, and that has been shaped through all its history by standing at this great crossroads of the world. The land of Anatolia has been a meeting place and a passage between continents and civilisations since the dawn of history, crossed by countless peoples, empires, and faiths, and Turkey today carries the marks of all of them, a unique blend of Eastern and Western ways found nowhere else.
This in-between character runs through the whole of Turkish life and identity. The country is at once European and Asian, Western and Middle Eastern, modern and traditional, secular and Muslim, and Turks have long negotiated their place between these worlds, drawn toward Europe and the West by the modernising vision of their republic, yet rooted in the Muslim faith and the traditions of the East, and standing geographically and culturally between them. The very city of Istanbul, divided by the water between its European and Asian shores, is the living symbol of this dual nature.
The result is a culture of remarkable richness and complexity, blending the heritage of the ancient Mediterranean, the Byzantine Christian world, the Islamic civilisation of the Ottomans, and the modern West, into a single distinctive identity. Turks may feel themselves European or Asian, secular or devout, modern or traditional, in differing measure, and the tension and the blend between these poles is a defining feature of the nation. To understand Turkey is to understand its character as a bridge between two worlds, a country that joins and balances East and West, and that draws its richness and its tensions alike from standing at the great crossroads of continents and civilisations.
From Byzantium to the Ottomans
Turkey rests on one of the most layered and storied histories on earth, for the land of Anatolia has been home to civilisation after civilisation across many thousands of years. Here arose some of the earliest human settlements and the ancient kingdoms of the Hittites and others; here the Greeks founded their cities along the Aegean coast; here ran the heart of the Roman world; and here, when Rome split, rose the great Byzantine Empire, the eastern Christian realm centred on Constantinople, the city that is now Istanbul, which for a thousand years was one of the greatest and richest cities in the world, the seat of Orthodox Christianity and the guardian of classical learning.
The Turks themselves came from Central Asia, moving west over the centuries into Anatolia, and in 1453 the Ottoman Turks captured Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire and making the city the capital of their own vast realm. The Ottoman Empire, which ruled for some six centuries, grew into one of the great powers of the world, a Muslim empire that at its height stretched across the Middle East, North Africa, and deep into Europe, ruling many peoples and faiths, and producing a brilliant civilisation of art, architecture, learning, and power. The mosques, palaces, and monuments of the Ottomans, above all in Istanbul, are among the glories of the world.
This immense double inheritance, the Byzantine Christian and the Ottoman Muslim, lies everywhere in Turkey, nowhere more so than in Istanbul, where the great church of Hagia Sophia, built by the Byzantines and turned into a mosque by the Ottomans, stands as the supreme symbol of the layered past. The Ottoman centuries shaped Turkish culture profoundly, in food, art, music, architecture, custom, and faith, and the memory of the empire remains a powerful presence in the national imagination. To understand Turkey is to understand this deep history, from the ancient civilisations of Anatolia through the thousand years of Byzantium to the six centuries of the Ottoman Empire whose inheritance still shapes the nation.
Ataturk and the secular republic
The modern nation of Turkey was born from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War, and it was the creation, above all, of one towering figure: Mustafa Kemal, later given the name Ataturk, father of the Turks, the soldier and statesman who founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and remade it on a wholly new model. Faced with the collapse of the old empire, Ataturk set out to build a modern, Western, secular nation-state, and he carried through a sweeping revolution that transformed the country and still defines it today.
Ataturk's reforms were vast and dramatic. He abolished the old Ottoman institutions and the religious offices, disestablished Islam as the state religion, and made the new republic firmly secular, separating religion from the state and public life. He replaced the Arabic script with a modified Latin alphabet, reformed the language, adopted Western legal codes, calendar, dress, and ways, gave women the vote and a place in public life, and pressed the whole nation toward Europe and modernity. He moved the capital from imperial Istanbul to Ankara in the Anatolian heartland, a symbol of the new beginning.
This revolution, known as Kemalism after its author, created the secular, modern, Western-leaning republic that Turkey has been ever since, and Ataturk himself is revered by many Turks with a profound and lasting devotion as the father of the nation, his image everywhere, his memory protected by law, his vision a cornerstone of the national identity. Yet his secular project has always coexisted, sometimes in tension, with the deep Muslim faith of the people, and the balance between Ataturk's secularism and the role of religion has been one of the great and continuing debates of Turkish life. To understand Turkey is to understand Ataturk and the secular republic he founded, the revolution that made the modern nation.
Faith between secular and devout
Turkey is a country of a fascinating and sometimes uneasy balance: a nation that is overwhelmingly Muslim in faith yet constitutionally secular in its state, and the relationship between religion and public life is one of the defining themes of Turkish culture. The great majority of Turks, around nine in ten and more, are Muslims, mostly Sunni, with a large and distinctive minority of Alevis, who follow their own tradition within Islam, and there are small ancient communities of Christians and Jews. The faith is woven into the culture, the calendar, the customs, and the values of the people, and the call to prayer sounds across every city and town.
Yet since Ataturk, the Turkish state has been firmly secular, keeping religion separate from government and law, and Turks have long been among the most secular of Muslim peoples, with a wide range of religious observance from the deeply devout to the wholly secular. Many Turks drink alcohol, the national spirit raki being beloved; many women go uncovered and live modern lives; and a strong secular tradition, especially in the cities and among the educated middle class, holds the separation of faith and state as a core value, the legacy of Ataturk. At the same time, a deep and widespread Muslim piety runs through much of society, especially in the Anatolian heartland and the countryside.
This balance has been a source of both richness and tension in modern Turkey, and the proper place of religion in public life has been one of the central debates of the nation, sharpened in recent decades by the rise of a more religiously conservative politics that has given the faith a larger public role and stirred the long argument between the secular and the devout. The result is a society of great variety, where the modern and the traditional, the secular and the religious, live side by side and sometimes in tension. For a visitor, respect for both the faith and the secular tradition, and an awareness of the range of belief, is the wise course. To understand Turkey is to understand this balance between the secular and the devout, one of the deepest features of its national life.
The guest sent by God
If any one quality defines the Turkish people, it is their hospitality, a warmth and generosity toward guests that is legendary across the world and lies at the very heart of the culture. In Turkish tradition the guest is honoured as something close to sacred, regarded as Tanri misafiri, a guest sent by God, and to welcome, feed, and care for a visitor, even a stranger, even one who arrives unannounced, is a deep duty and a joy, an expression of honour and generosity that runs to the core of the Turkish character. A guest is a blessing, and no effort is spared to make them comfortable and welcome.
This hospitality is offered with remarkable warmth and abundance. A visitor to a Turkish home will be pressed with tea, coffee, sweets, and food in generous measure, urged to eat and eat again, and treated with a kindness and attentiveness that can be overwhelming, often by people of modest means who give their best to the guest. To refuse the offered hospitality outright can give offence, for the offering is heartfelt; the gracious way is to accept warmly, at least to take the tea. The Turkish readiness to invite a stranger, to share a meal, to go out of one's way to help a visitor, is famous and genuine.
The hospitality flows from deep roots, from the traditions of Anatolia and Central Asia, from the values of generosity and charity in Islam, from a strong sense of honour, and from a genuine warmth and love of company. It is bound up with the rituals of tea and food, for to offer these is the first act of welcome, and with the deep value Turks place on human connection and neighbourliness. For a visitor, the keys are to receive Turkish hospitality graciously, to accept the tea and the welcome, to return warmth with warmth, and to understand that the generosity is sincere. To understand Turkey is to understand the honouring of the guest, sent by God, and the legendary hospitality that lies at the heart of the culture.
The endless glasses of tea
No custom is more constant in Turkish daily life than the drinking of tea, cay, the national drink that flows through every hour of the day and every act of hospitality and sociability. Turkish tea is brewed strong, served black and usually sweet in small tulip-shaped glasses, and drunk in great quantity throughout the day, at home, at work, in the shops and cafes, and above all whenever people gather or a guest arrives. To offer tea is the first gesture of welcome and friendship, refused only with care, and the sharing of tea is woven into the fabric of Turkish social life, from the business deal to the family visit to the chat with a neighbour.
Beside the tea stands Turkish coffee, kahve, an ancient and cherished tradition, a thick, strong, unfiltered coffee brewed slowly in a special pot and served in tiny cups, drunk in small sips after letting the grounds settle, often with a piece of Turkish delight. Turkish coffee is so deeply woven into the culture that it has its own ceremonies and customs, including the old practice of reading fortunes in the grounds left in the cup, and it remains a beloved ritual of hospitality and sociability, taken slowly and with conversation. The very word for breakfast in Turkish recalls the coffee, and the drink gave its name to the colour brown in many languages.
These rituals of tea and coffee are far more than the drinks themselves; they are the medium of Turkish sociability, the constant occasions for gathering, talking, welcoming, and being together that fill daily life. The teahouse and the cafe are central social institutions, places where people, especially men in the traditional teahouses, gather to talk, play games, and pass the time. For a visitor, to accept and share the tea or coffee is to enter into the warmth of Turkish hospitality and the rhythm of Turkish life. To understand Turkey is to understand the ritual of tea and coffee, the constant cups that carry the welcome and the sociability of the culture.
Family, elders, and the evil eye
The family lies at the very heart of Turkish life, the deepest and most important of all bonds, and Turkish families are close, warm, and traditionally extended, reaching well beyond parents and children to embrace grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in a tight and supportive web. The family is the foundation of society, the first source of love, support, identity, and security, and its bonds carry deep obligations of mutual help, so that family members support one another through life, and the honour and good name of the family matter greatly to all. Though city life has brought smaller, nuclear families and more individualism, especially among the young, the family remains the bedrock of Turkish society.
Within the family, age and seniority command deep respect, and the honouring of elders is a cornerstone value. The young show deference to the old, do not contradict or challenge them, and observe customs of respect, above all the old gesture of taking an elder's hand and kissing it and touching it to the forehead, a beautiful mark of respect shown to parents, grandparents, and elders, especially on festival days. The care of aging parents by their children is taken for granted, and the old are honoured and cherished. Respect flows up the generations, and authority is accorded to age and to the head of the family.
Woven through Turkish family and daily life is a rich body of custom and belief, none more pervasive than the nazar, the evil eye, the belief that envy or admiration can bring misfortune, and the blue glass amulet, the nazar boncugu, the blue eye-bead worn and hung everywhere, on people, in homes, on cars, in shops, to ward it off, one of the most recognisable symbols of Turkey. To this are joined many other customs and superstitions, the blessings and pious phrases, the folk beliefs and practices that fill daily life. For a visitor, respect for elders, warmth toward family, and an appreciation of these customs open every door. To understand Turkey is to understand the central place of the close family, the deep respect for elders, and the ever-present blue bead against the evil eye.
How Turks greet
Turkish greetings are warm, courteous, and full of feeling, reflecting the friendliness and the strong sense of honour and respect that mark the culture. People greet one another with genuine warmth, a handshake among men, often warm and lingering, and among friends and relatives an embrace and a kiss on each cheek; among women similarly; though between men and women, especially the more religiously observant, it is wise to wait and follow the other's lead. Elders are greeted with special respect, sometimes with the hand-kiss, and the greeting is accompanied by warm inquiries after one's health and family. The common greetings come in Turkish, the warm merhaba for hello and the Islamic selamun aleykum among the devout.
Turkish conversation is warm, animated, and expressive, for Turks are sociable and friendly, quick to talk, to welcome, and to draw a stranger into conversation. Talk is a pleasure, hospitality is offered freely, and the language is rich in courtesy, in blessings and set phrases for every occasion, the wishes of good health, of welcome, of comfort to the sick and the bereaved, that pepper Turkish speech and express the warmth and politeness of the culture. Turks are known for their good humour, their warmth, and their genuine friendliness to visitors.
Courtesy and respect shape the manner of address, with respectful titles and forms used for elders, for those of higher status, and in formal settings, and a general politeness and warmth valued throughout social life. For a visitor, the way to get on is to meet the Turkish warmth with warmth: to greet people properly, to inquire after their well-being, to be friendly, courteous, and good-humoured, to show clear respect to elders, and to accept the hospitality offered. Even a few words of Turkish are warmly received. To understand Turkey is to understand the warmth, courtesy, and sociability of its greetings and the deep friendliness of its people.
Kebabs, meze, and the Turkish table
Turkish cuisine is one of the great cuisines of the world, rich, varied, and refined, the inheritance of the Ottoman palace kitchens and the many regions and peoples of Anatolia, drawing on the meeting of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Balkan, and Central Asian ways. It is a cuisine of superb ingredients and deep tradition, built on bread, the staple of every meal, on lamb and other meats, on vegetables, beans, and grains, on yoghurt, used everywhere, on olive oil in the west and butter in the east, and on a wealth of herbs, spices, and fresh produce.
The dishes are famous across the world. There are the kebabs in their many forms, the grilled and roasted meats for which Turkey is renowned, the doner turning on its spit, the skewered kebabs of the grill; the meze, the great array of small cold and hot dishes, dips, salads, and appetisers, spread across the table to be shared and lingered over; the dolma and sarma, the stuffed vegetables and vine leaves; the pide and lahmacun, the Turkish flatbreads and pizzas; the borek, the savoury pastries; the rich soups and stews and rice pilavs. And for the sweet tooth, the famous baklava, the layered pastry of nuts and syrup, the Turkish delight, the lokum, and a wealth of other syrup-soaked sweets and milk puddings.
The meal is a deeply social occasion, often shared from communal dishes placed in the centre of the table, taken slowly and with conversation, and central to hospitality, for to feed a guest abundantly is the deepest Turkish welcome. The meze table, spread with many small dishes and often accompanied by the anise spirit raki in the secular tradition, is a beloved institution of long, sociable evenings. Tea follows every meal. As a Muslim country Turkey largely observes halal custom, avoiding pork, though the secular tradition includes alcohol. For a visitor, to share a Turkish meal, the meze and the kebab, the bread and the tea and the baklava, is to taste one of the world's great tables and the warmth of Turkish hospitality. To understand Turkey is to understand its magnificent cuisine and the deep place of the shared table in its life.
The hamam and the rhythms of life
Among the most cherished and distinctive of Turkish institutions is the hamam, the Turkish bath, an ancient tradition of communal bathing inherited from the Roman and Byzantine worlds and perfected under the Ottomans, that is at once a place of cleansing, relaxation, and deep sociability. The hamam is a building of warm marble rooms filled with steam, where bathers wash, sweat, are scrubbed and massaged, and relax in the heat, a ritual of the body and a social occasion, traditionally with separate times or sections for men and women, that has been part of Turkish life for centuries and remains beloved, both as a living custom and as a glimpse of Ottoman splendour for visitors.
The hamam is woven into the milestones and rhythms of Turkish life, traditionally a gathering place for women in particular, a setting for the bride's bath before a wedding, for celebration, for relaxation, and for the building of community, as well as a simple necessity of cleanliness in earlier times. It expresses the Turkish love of cleanliness, of ritual, of the care of the body, and of sociability, and the great old hamams, with their domed marble chambers, are among the treasures of Ottoman architecture.
The hamam is part of a wider Turkish attention to cleanliness, the body, and the small rituals of daily life, seen too in customs like the offering of kolonya, the scented lemon cologne splashed on the hands of guests as a refreshing token of hospitality, a beloved Turkish custom. Removing shoes before entering a home, washing for prayer, and other customs of cleanliness run through the culture. For a visitor, to experience a traditional hamam is to share in one of the most distinctive and pleasurable of Turkish customs. To understand Turkey is to understand the hamam and the cherished rituals of cleanliness, relaxation, and sociability that mark the rhythms of Turkish life.
Ramazan and the two Bayrams
The Turkish year is marked by a blend of religious and national festivals, and the greatest of the religious occasions, for the Muslim majority, are the holy month of Ramazan, the Turkish Ramadan, and the two great feasts called Bayrams. Through Ramazan, the faithful fast from dawn to sunset, and the rhythm of the nation shifts, with the fast broken each evening at the iftar meal, often shared in large gatherings of family and community, the tables laden with special foods, the dates and soup and pide bread, and the days quiet while the nights come alive with sociability, prayer, and festivity. Ramazan is a deeply observed time of faith, charity, and family across much of Turkey.
The end of Ramazan brings the first great feast, Ramazan Bayrami, the festival of the breaking of the fast, known elsewhere as Eid al-Fitr, a joyful celebration of several days marked by special prayers, family visits, the giving of sweets and money to children, the wearing of new clothes, and the honouring of elders with the hand-kiss. It is also called the Sugar Feast, Seker Bayrami, for the sweets that fill it, and it is a time of happiness, reunion, and generosity. The second great feast is Kurban Bayrami, the feast of the sacrifice, known elsewhere as Eid al-Adha, which falls in the season of the pilgrimage to Mecca and is marked by the sacrifice of an animal whose meat is shared with family, neighbours, and above all the poor, in a great act of charity.
Beside the religious feasts, the secular republic keeps its own national holidays, deeply felt expressions of the Kemalist tradition: Republic Day on the twenty-ninth of October, celebrating the founding of the republic in 1923 with parades and ceremony; the holidays commemorating Ataturk and the founding of the nation; and the day of national sovereignty and children. To these are joined regional and seasonal festivals, the folk celebrations like Hidirellez marking the coming of spring, and the lively round of weddings and family occasions. For a visitor, the festivals offer a window into both the faith and the national spirit of Turkey. To understand Turkey is to understand its festivals, the religious Ramazan and Bayrams and the national days of the republic.
Weddings, henna nights, and milestones
The great milestones of life in Turkey are marked with deep ceremony, the gathering of family and community, and the rich customs of tradition and faith. Birth is welcomed with rejoicing, and the milestones of childhood are marked according to custom, including, for boys, the important rite of circumcision, celebrated with the sunnet dugunu, the circumcision feast, a grand celebration akin to a wedding, in which the boy, dressed in a special princely costume, is honoured with a great party of family and friends, one of the major family occasions of Turkish life.
The wedding is the supreme celebration, and Turkish weddings are large, joyful, and often lengthy affairs, rich in custom, music, dancing, and feasting, that gather the wider family and community. Among the most beloved customs is the kina gecesi, the henna night, the women's celebration on the eve of the wedding when the bride's hands are decorated with henna amid music, song, and emotion, a deeply felt and traditional rite. The celebrations unfold over engagement, the henna night, and the great wedding feast itself, with its music, dancing, and the pinning of gold and money to the bride and groom, for marriage is a central institution and a wedding a major event for the whole community.
Death is marked according to Islamic custom, swiftly and with deep communal support. The body is washed, shrouded, and buried quickly, within a day if possible, in the Muslim way, with the funeral prayer and the gathering of the community, and the family receives condolences and observes customs of mourning and remembrance, with the community gathering around the bereaved in support. Through the milestones of life, from birth and circumcision through the henna night and wedding to the funeral, run the enduring threads of Turkish culture: family, community, faith, tradition, and the love of both celebration and shared support. To understand Turkey is to understand these milestones, where family and custom mark the passage of every Turkish life.
What people wear
Dress in Turkey reflects the nation's character as a bridge between worlds, ranging from the fully modern and Western to the traditional and religiously modest, and varying greatly by region, class, faith, and generation. In the great cities, above all Istanbul and Ankara, and among the secular and the well-off, dress is modern, fashionable, and Western, little different from that of Europe, and Turkey has a vibrant fashion and textile industry. Ataturk's reforms encouraged Western dress, and the secular tradition is strong in the cities.
At the same time, religious modesty and traditional dress hold an important place, especially in the Anatolian heartland, the countryside, and among the more devout. Many Turkish women, particularly the religiously observant, wear the headscarf covering the hair, along with modest clothing, though many others go uncovered, and the headscarf has been at the centre of the long debate between the secular and the religious in Turkey. Traditional village dress, the baggy trousers and head coverings, endures in rural areas, and older and traditional men may wear the cloth cap. The range of dress, from the secular and modern to the modest and traditional, mirrors the wider balance of Turkish society.
For a visitor, the keys are to dress according to the setting: modern and casual dress is fine in the cities and the tourist areas, but more modest dress, covering shoulders and knees, is respectful in conservative areas, in the countryside, and is required when visiting mosques, where women cover their hair, all must remove their shoes, and modest dress is expected. Sensitivity to the range of Turkish society, from the cosmopolitan and secular to the traditional and devout, is the wise course. To understand Turkey is to understand the range of its dress, from the modern fashion of the cities to the modest and traditional garb of the heartland, reflecting the nation's balance of worlds.
Carpets, dervishes, and the arts
Turkey holds a rich and distinctive artistic heritage, drawn from the meeting of its many traditions, and several of its arts are treasures of the world. Most famous is the Turkish carpet, the hali, and the flat-woven kilim, the celebrated hand-knotted rugs whose intricate patterns, rich colours, and fine craftsmanship have been prized across the world for centuries, each region weaving its own distinctive designs that carry meaning and identity, an ancient art reaching back before the coming of Islam. The carpet is one of the great symbols of Turkey and a living craft still practised across the land.
Among the most evocative of Turkish arts is the dance of the whirling dervishes, the sema of the Mevlevi order of Sufi mystics, founded by the great medieval poet and mystic Rumi, whose followers spin in a slow, trance-like, white-robed dance of devotion that is at once a religious rite and one of the most beautiful and famous spectacles of Turkish culture. To this Sufi heritage belongs the deep tradition of Turkish mystical poetry and music. Turkey's other arts are rich too: the beautiful Islamic calligraphy, raising the written word to art; the ebru, the delicate art of marbling paper; the ceramics and tiles, above all the famous blue-and-white wares; the music, from the Ottoman classical tradition to the folk music of the regions and the lively modern scene; and the folk dances of the regions, the zeybek, the halay, the Black Sea horon.
Turkey has a thriving modern culture too, a celebrated cinema, a literature that has given the world the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and a deep tradition of poetry and the novel, and the hugely popular Turkish television dramas that are watched across the Middle East, the Balkans, and far beyond, carrying Turkish culture into the world. The architecture of the Ottomans, the great mosques with their domes and minarets, stands among the glories of world building. This rich blend of the traditional and the modern, the Islamic and the secular, the Eastern and the Western, marks all of Turkish art. To understand Turkey is to understand its arts, the carpet, the dervish, the calligraphy, and the living culture of the modern nation.
Istanbul and the regions
Turkey is a large and varied country, and its regions differ greatly, but at its heart, in spirit if no longer in government, stands Istanbul, one of the great cities of the world and the living symbol of the nation. Istanbul, the ancient Constantinople, the city that bridges Europe and Asia across the Bosphorus, was for sixteen centuries the capital of empires, Byzantine and Ottoman, and it remains the cultural, economic, and historical heart of Turkey, a vast and magnificent metropolis of some fifteen million people, layered with the monuments of its imperial past, the great mosques and palaces and the towering Hagia Sophia, and alive with the energy of a modern world city. It is one of the most storied and beautiful cities on earth.
Beyond Istanbul, Turkey's regions each have their own character. Ankara, the capital in the Anatolian heartland, is the modern seat of government, a creation of the republic. The Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, with their ancient ruins, olive groves, and beaches, are sun-blessed, Mediterranean in life and food, and a great draw for visitors. The Black Sea coast in the north is green, rainy, and mountainous, with its own culture and the famous tea gardens. Central Anatolia is the vast, dry heartland, the historic and conservative core of the nation, home to wonders like the rock landscapes of Cappadocia. And the southeast, largely Kurdish, has its own distinct culture and a long and difficult history.
This regional diversity, and the deep differences between the cosmopolitan, secular cities and the traditional, devout countryside, between west and east, coast and interior, are among the great realities of Turkey, a country that contains many worlds. The Kurds, the largest minority, with their own language and culture, mainly in the southeast, are an important part of the nation, and their place within it has been one of its central challenges. For a visitor, Turkey's regions offer an extraordinary range, from the imperial splendour of Istanbul to the ancient coasts to the wild heartland. To understand Turkey is to understand Istanbul, the heart of the nation, and the great diversity of its regions.
The nation today
Turkey today is a republic of about eighty-five million people, a regional power of growing weight straddling Europe and Asia, with its capital at Ankara and its great heart at Istanbul. It is governed by a powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has led the country since 2014, and a parliament, having moved in recent years from a parliamentary to a presidential system. The official language is Turkish, the faith of the great majority Islam, and the state constitutionally secular, though the balance between secularism and a more religiously conservative politics has been a central theme of recent years. Turkey is a member of NATO and has long sought, so far without success, to join the European Union.
Modern Turkey is a dynamic and complex nation, with a large young population, a substantial economy, a rich culture of growing global reach, and a powerful sense of national pride, yet it faces real challenges: economic turbulence, with high inflation and a falling currency in recent years; deep political divisions between the secular and the religious, the government and the opposition; the long question of the place of the Kurdish minority; the strains of hosting millions of refugees from neighbouring Syria; and concerns over the direction of its democracy. It plays an increasingly assertive role in the affairs of its region and the world, drawing on its position at the crossroads of continents.
Through all its modern complexity, Turkey holds firmly to the identity that defines it. Its position as a bridge between Europe and Asia, East and West, still shapes its character; the deep layered history of Anatolia, from Byzantium to the Ottomans, still marks the land; the secular republic of Ataturk and the Muslim faith of the people still balance and contend; the legendary hospitality endures; and the cherished rituals of tea, the table, and the bath still fill daily life. To know Turkey is to meet a great and ancient land, heir to mighty empires and crossroads of civilisations, where East and West meet, where the guest is sent by God, and where a proud and complex nation lives between the worlds it joins.