Official language : Turkish
Parliamentary republic :
- President : Abdullah Gül
- Prime Minister : Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
- Speaker of the Parliament : Köksal Toptan
Area : 780,000 km²
Population :
- 72,000,000 inhabitants
- density : 93 inhabitants / km²
- growth population rate : around 2%
Currency : New Turkish Lira
Geography
- Natural conditions :
The Anatolian plateau is about 1,132 meters high and counts a great number of lakes such as the Lake Van. The main mountains are the Taurus Mountains (in the South) and the Pontique Mountains (in the North).
Spring is very warm. Rainfalls are unfairly spread : in the North, along the Black Sea, it rains all the year whereas in the West and the South, it mainly rains in winter.
The vegetation is varied : shrubs in the Mediterranean region, forests in the mountains. In the Central Anatolia, there is a poor vegetation because it’s very arid.
- Population
The main minority is the Kurds.
The majority of the population lives in the West and half the population lives in town.
- Economy
Half the workers works in agriculture, mainly in small family farms. In the Anatolian plateau, cereals, like wheat and barley, are cultivated and goats and sheep are reared. Along the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea, tobacco, fruit trees and sometimes tea plant and hazel trees are cultivated. In the Mediterranean region, cotton, grapes, rice, bananas and citrus fruits are cultivated.
The mining resources of Turkey are : coal, lignite, iron, copper, bauxite, chromium, manganese and petroleum.
Hydroelectricity is very important.
