Neighbors: Turkey's neighbors are Bulgaria(240 km) and Greece(206 km)in the northwest; Georgia(252 km),Armenia(268 km) and Azerbaijan(9 km) in the northeast; Iran (499 km)and Iraq (331 km) in the east, Syria (822 km)in the southeast and Cyprus in the south.
Language: The official language is Turkish.Turkish Language is of Ural-Altaic origin, that is from the same origin as Finnish, Hungarian, Japanese and Korean. It's a suffix-based language which is read as it is written. The alphabet used in Turkey is the Latin alphabet with some minor changes. There are also Arabic and Kurdish speaking regions.
Currency: The official currency unit is called "New Turkish Lira"(YTL). You can easily use USD or EUR in your daily transactions, for instance tipping the restaurants, hotels or in the big department stores. In Turkey, the use of credit cards is also very popular!!
Electricity: The electricity in Turkey is of the 220 V,50-cycle variety. The two-round prong European plug will work here but have a converter with you in case you use any 110V machine.
Tap Water: Soft and safe to drink but heavily chlorinated, prefer bottled mineral water. Different bottled water brands has different Fr. and PH levels but Erikli and Pinar Madran are two softest brands.
Working Hours: Governmental Offices work 8:00-12.00 a.m / 1.00 p.m-5.00 pm. Banks:8:30-12.00 a.m / 1.30 p.m-05.30 p.m. Private companies:Usually 09:00-12.00 a.m / 1.00-6.00 p.m.
Time Difference: Australia:+8 , Belgium:-1 , Canada:-7 , Denmark:-1 , England:-2 , Germany:-1
Japan:+7 ,Sweden:-1, Spain:-1 , Italy:-1 , Greece:0 , Israel:0 ,Egypt:0 France:-1
China:+6 , USA:-7(NYC)/-10(San Fransisco).
Religion: The 99.8% of the population is Muslim(overwhelmingly sunni). The rest 0.2% of the population is Jewish or Christian.There was a big Greek minority over the past years in Istanbul and they were representing the Greek-Orthodox society. The majority of the Jews living in Istanbul are Sephardis who came to Turkey from Spain after the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century...There are many synagogues and churches as well as mosques in Istanbul...They will be mentioned in the following sections.
Economy: Turkey is a fastly developing country with its tourism, automotive(both manufacturing and assembling),textiles,services, construction(steel and cement factories), food and agriculture. Turkey has always been an agricultural country after the foundation of the Republic of Turkey but after 1970s, thanks to the enterpreneurs and incentive policies of the governments, the industry made a considerable development. Exports of certain goods, such as cotton,dried figs and apricots,nuts and herbs still covers a big share of Turkish economy.
Current problems of Economy: Turkey suffers from recession,inflation, unemployment and very high level of interest rates. Because of the government budget deficits, continuosly reprinted money causes inflation shoot up. The everdecresing value of Turkish Lira used to accelerate people's mistrust to T.L and leads them to make currency substitution; to have USD or EUR instead... As of 2005, Turkish Lira is stable. The currency is called YTL (new Turkish Lira). Government is trying to settle the economy by taking some precautions which will enable people to invest and spend more...Turkey,as a candidate country for the EU, is very careful about decreasing the high inflation rate and increasing the employment rate.
Government & Politics: Turkey is a parliamentary regime with its president, prime minister and 550 MPs(Members of Parliament).The general elections are carried out every 5 years to elect the government and for the past 10 years, Turkey is governed by coalition governments. There are MPs and ministers who are charged with different tasks; like minister of health or minister of education etc... All of them are responsible to the PM(Prime Minister). The Prime Minister of Turkey as of March,'03 is Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Justice and Prosperity Party(AK PARTİ). The current government is led by this party and CHP(Republican People's Party) holds the opposition. The President of Republic of Turkey is Mr. Abdullah Gul as of 2007. The forthcoming war causes many political and economic problems in Turkey.
The rightist conservative and religious party, Fazilet Party (wisdom) was banned in June for being a threat against the democracy and secularism. It did not take a long time for the same politicians to form another party with a different name (Saadet Party)(happiness) in July. The fraction out of this group, so called "new formation" was renamed as "Ak Party(Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi)" which means "justice and prosperity party". The head of this party is the former mayor of Istanbul, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
As Turkish Nationals, we condemn the bloddy terrorist attack towards USA and share the sorrows of the Americans. Turkey suffered from terrorism over 25 years and over 30,000 innocent people died for a non-sense conflict. Regardless of the goal of these attacks, taking the life of innocents could not be associated with any religion or any idealism. We condemn terror and God saves us all from terror!
We are against the death of innocent people in any war just for the sake of "national interest".
Any terrorist attack on our land or anywhere in the world will not deter us!!! Turkey hosted many different cultures over the centuries and will continue to host anyone from any part of the world...If you are afraid of visiting Turkey BECAUSE OF THE TERRORIST ATTACKS, YOU MAKE THEM HAPPY BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT!!! Here is as peaceful as it used to be and the sun rises as beautiful as ever...
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