|government =Parliamentary republic
|government-raw =
|language =Turkish language|Turkish
|king =
|queen =
|tld =
}}
The '''Republic of Turkey''' is a country occupying the Anatolian Peninsula of western [[Western Asia]], as well as a small section of eastern Southeastern [[Europe]] at the Bosporus Strait.
==People==
==History==
[[Image:St. Sophie Turkey.jpg|right|280px|thumb|Hagia Sofia, Istanbul]]
[[Mustafa Kemal]], celebrated by the Turkish State as a Turkish [[World War I]] hero and later known as "Atatürk" or "father of the Turks," led the founding of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 after the collapse of the 600-year-old [[Ottoman Empire]] and a three-year war of independence. The empire, which at its peak controlled vast stretches of northern Northern Africa, southeastern Southeastern Europe, and western Western Asia, had failed to keep pace with European social and technological developments. The rise of national consciousness impelled several national groups within the Empire to seek independence as nation-states, leading to the empire's fragmentation. This process culminated in the disastrous Ottoman participation in World War I as a German ally. Defeated, shorn of much of its former territory, and partly occupied by forces of the victorious European states, the Ottoman structure was repudiated by Turkish nationalists brought together under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal. The nationalists expelled invading Greek, Russian, French and Italian forces from Anatolia in a bitter war. After the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey the temporal and religious ruling institutions of the old empire (the sultanate and caliphate) were abolished.
[[File:Muslims in Europe map.jpg|thumb|320px|left|Muslims in Europe by country.]]
The leaders of the new republic concentrated on consolidating their power and modernizing and Westernizing what had been the empire's core—Asian Anatolia and a part of European Thrace. Social, political, linguistic, and economic reforms and attitudes decreed by Atatürk from 1924-1934 continue to be referred to as the ideological base of modern Turkey. In the post-Atatürk era, and especially after the military coup of 1960, this ideology came to be known as "Kemalism" and his reforms began to be referred to as "revolutions." Kemalism comprises a Turkish form of secularism, strong nationalism, statism, and to a degree a western orientation. The continued validity and applicability of Kemalism are the subject of lively debate in Turkey's political life. The current ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) comes from a tradition that challenges many of the Kemalist precepts and is driven in its reform efforts by a desire to achieve EU accession.
== External links ==
*[http://www.nuktravel.com/turkey.html WELCOME TO TURKEY]
*[http://bertschlossberg.blogspot.com/ A Turkish Delight: they think so in Israel also!]