Landscape of Turkey

Turkey is roughly rectangular and has an area of 814,578 square kilometres or 314,510 square miles, approximately 3.5 times the size of the UK. It is situated on two continents – 3% in Europe and the remainder in Asia – which are separated by the Bosphorus, which runs from the Black Sea through İstanbul, and the inland Sea of Marmara which flows through the Dardanelles and out to the Aegean. It has a coastline of 8333 kms or 5178 miles in length, and is bordered by the Black Sea (Karadeniz) to the north, the Sea of Marmara (Marmara Denizi) and the Aegean (Ege) to thewest and the Mediterranean (Akdeniz) to the south. Turkey is a huge country and the distance from İstanbul in the north west to Hakkari in the south east is approx. 1814 kms or 1217 miles.

Turkey is an extremely mountainous country with an average altitude of 1,132 metres. The NorthAnatolian mountains run along the north of the country, parallel to the Black Sea, with the Taurus Mountains sweeping along the Mediterranean in the south. Turkey’s highest mountain peak at 5165 metres or 16,946 feet is MountArarat (Ağrı Dağı) , situated in the north east. Mount Ararat is a snow-capped inactive volcano, which rises above the surrounding plains. It is said to have been the resting place for Noah’s Ark.

There are a large number of lakes in Turkey, some such as Lake Van, which is the largest natural lake at 3,713 square kms, covering as much area as an inland sea.Anumber of dams have been constructed during the past thirty years, which have resulted in the formation of several large dam lakes including theAtatürk Dam lake which started to collect water in January 1990.Amongst the many rivers which flow through Turkey, the Kızılırmak, which flows into the Black Sea is the longest at 1355 kms. The Euphrates (Fırat) and Tigris (Dicle) both originate in Turkey and flow through other countries before reaching the Persian Gulf.

Turkey is separated into seven geographical regions, which are, in order of size: East Anatolia (21%), CentralAnatolia (20%), Black Sea (18%), Mediterranean (15%), Aegean (10%), Marmara