98 Fun Facts About Turkey

What is the capital city of Turkey?

Ankara has been Turkey's capital since 1923, when Atatürk's new republic moved the government away from Istanbul; two millennia earlier, as Ancyra, it was the centre of Celtic Galatia.

Which strait separates the European and Asian sides of Istanbul?

The Bosphorus (also spelled Bosporus) is the narrow strait that divides Istanbul into European and Asian halves, connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.

Turkey is located on how many continents?

Turkey spans two continents: Anatolia lies in Asia, while East Thrace in Europe holds only about three percent of the land but most of Istanbul.

What is the largest city in Turkey by population?

Istanbul is by far Turkey's largest city, with a population of more than 15 million; the capital Ankara is a distant second at around 5 million.

Cappadocia's fairy chimneys were formed by erosion of what type of rock?

The fairy chimneys are eroded from volcanic tuff, soft compacted ash laid down by ancient eruptions of Mount Erciyes, Mount Hasan and Göllüdağ, often capped by harder basalt.

Pamukkale, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Turkey, is famous for white terraces made of what?

The terraces are travertine, a limestone deposited by calcium-rich hot springs; Pamukkale means 'Cotton Castle', and the Greco-Roman spa city of Hierapolis was built on top of it.

Which sea borders Turkey to the north?

The Black Sea forms Turkey's whole northern coast, from the Bulgarian border to Georgia; the Mediterranean lies to the south, the Aegean to the west, and the Caspian never touches Turkey.

Mount Ararat, the highest peak in Turkey, is traditionally associated with which biblical event?

Noah's Ark coming to rest there is a medieval identification with the Bible's 'mountains of Ararat'; the 5,137 m peak even appears, ark and all, on the coat of arms of neighbouring Armenia.

The Dardanelles strait connects the Aegean Sea to which body of water?

The Dardanelles (also called the Strait of Gallipoli) connects the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. From there, the Bosphorus connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea.

Who was the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923?

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923, after leading the Turkish War of Independence. He served as its first president until his death in 1938.

Which Ottoman sultan conquered Constantinople in 1453?

Sultan Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror, captured Constantinople on May 29, 1453, at just 21 years old, ending over 1,000 years of Byzantine rule.

Who became Turkey's second president after Atatürk died in 1938?

İsmet İnönü, Atatürk's long-serving prime minister, was elected president the day after Atatürk died; parliament titled him Millî Şef, 'National Chief', and he kept Turkey out of the Second World War until 1945.

Who began excavating the mound of Hisarlık, identified as Troy, in 1871?

Heinrich Schliemann, a self-made merchant, dug at Hisarlık from 1871 with Frank Calvert's guidance and in 1873 announced 'Priam's Treasure', a hoard he smuggled out of the Ottoman Empire.

The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-1916, fought over the Dardanelles, was part of which war?

World War I's Gallipoli campaign saw Ottoman forces, commanded in part by Mustafa Kemal, later Atatürk, hold the Dardanelles against the Allied landings.

Which Ottoman sultan of the 16th-century golden age was known in the West as 'the Magnificent'?

Suleiman I (r. 1520-1566) took Belgrade and Rhodes, crushed Hungary at Mohács in 1526 and besieged Vienna in 1529; his legal reforms earned him the Turkish title Kanuni, 'the Lawgiver'.

Ephesus, home to one of the Seven Wonders, lies beside which present-day Turkish town?

Ephesus lies just outside Selçuk in İzmir Province; its Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders, and the two-storey façade of the Library of Celsus still stands.

Constantinople was the capital of which empire for more than a millennium before the Ottoman conquest of 1453?

Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, was ruled from Constantinople from 330 until Mehmed II's Ottomans took the city in 1453.

In which year was the Ottoman sultanate abolished, ending the empire?

The Grand National Assembly abolished it on November 1, 1922; Mehmed VI left the country on November 17, and the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed on October 29, 1923.

What is the traditional Turkish bath experience called?

A hammam is the Turkish steam bath, centred on a heated marble platform, the göbek taşı, where bathers are scrubbed; Ottoman baths continued the Roman and Byzantine bathhouse tradition.

What is the name of the whirling spiritual dance performed by Sufi practitioners in Turkey?

The sema is the whirling ceremony of the Mevlevi dervishes; the word means 'listening' in Arabic, and the order traces the rite to the 13th-century poet Rumi himself.

The blue glass nazar boncuğu, seen across Turkey, is meant to protect against what?

The evil eye is what the nazar wards off; the word comes from Arabic for 'sight', and Greeks call the same charm a máti, simply 'eye'.

What is the longest river lying entirely within Turkey?

The Kızılırmak, 'Red River', the ancient Halys, runs about 1,355 km in a great arc through Anatolia to the Black Sea; the Euphrates and Tigris are longer but flow on into Syria and Iraq.

What layered Turkish dessert is made with phyllo dough, nuts and honey or syrup?

Baklava is built from dozens of filo sheets, each brushed with melted butter before the next goes on, layered with chopped pistachios or walnuts and soaked in syrup after baking.

What do Turks call the starch-and-sugar sweet the English know as 'Turkish delight'?

Lokum is a gel of starch and sugar, flavoured with rosewater, mastic or citrus and dusted with powdered sugar; Istanbul confectioners were selling it by the late 18th century.

Which Turkish drink is made from yoghurt whisked with cold water and salt?

Ayran is yoghurt whisked with cold water and salt, the standard partner to kebabs; boza is a fermented grain drink, şalgam a purple turnip juice and şıra unfermented grape must.

What is the name of Istanbul's historic covered market, one of the largest and oldest in the world?

The Grand Bazaar (Kapali Carsi) in Istanbul dates to 1461 and is one of the world's largest and oldest covered markets, with over 4,000 shops across 61 covered streets, attracting up to 400,000 visitors daily.

Which southeastern Turkish city is considered the world capital of baklava?

The recipe arrived in 1871 with a local named Çelebi Güllü, who learned it from a Syrian chef in Damascus; in 2013 Gaziantep baklava became the first Turkish product with EU protected status.

Turkish coffee is traditionally brewed in what small long-handled pot?

The cezve, a small long-handled pot usually made of copper, takes its name from the Arabic for 'ember'; a demlik is a teapot and a fincan the tiny cup the coffee is served in.

What was Istanbul's Hagia Sophia originally built as?

Hagia Sophia was built as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople, completed under Emperor Justinian in AD 537; its 31-metre dome crowned the world's largest church for nearly a thousand years.

What gives Istanbul's Blue Mosque its nickname?

The nickname comes from its interior tiles: more than 20,000 blue-painted İznik tiles line the walls. Officially the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, it was completed in 1616 and has been a UNESCO site since 1985.

Roughly how long was Topkapı Palace the main residence of the Ottoman sultans?

Topkapı was the sultans' main residence for roughly four centuries, from Mehmed II's completion of it in the 1460s until Abdulmejid I moved the court to the European-style Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856.

Which site in southeastern Turkey, dating to around 9500 BCE, upended theories on the origins of civilization?

Gobekli Tepe, near Şanlıurfa, holds circular enclosures of carved T-shaped limestone pillars, the world's oldest known megaliths, raised by hunter-gatherers before farming or pottery existed.

Which Turkish football club has the most Super Lig titles?

Galatasaray has won the most Süper Lig titles, reaching 25 with the 2024-25 championship against Fenerbahçe's 19; it is also the only Turkish club to win a European trophy, the 2000 UEFA Cup.

In 2020 Turkey controversially reconverted the Hagia Sophia from a museum into what?

It reopened as a mosque on 24 July 2020 after the Council of State annulled the 1934 decree that had made it a museum; President Erdoğan had floated the idea since 2018.

What is the official currency of Turkey?

The Turkish lira (TRY) is the official currency of Turkey. The word lira derives from the Latin word libra, meaning pound. Turkey redenominated its currency in 2005, dropping six zeros.

Turkey is a member of which major Western military alliance?

Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, making it one of the alliance's earliest members. Turkey has the second-largest standing military force in NATO after the United States.

The ancient underground cities of Cappadocia, such as Derinkuyu, could shelter how many people?

Derinkuyu, the largest excavated, is thought to have sheltered up to 20,000 people with their livestock and stores across many levels; it was enlarged during the Arab–Byzantine wars as a refuge from raiders.

Which iconic Turkish dish features meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie?

The name means 'turning roast'; the outer layer is shaved off in thin slices as it cooks.

The 13th-century poet Rumi spent most of his life in which Turkish city?

Rumi settled in Konya, capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm, whose name gave him his own ('the Roman'); he died there in 1273 and his tomb became the Mevlana shrine.

What does the Turkish word 'Ataturk' mean?

Ataturk means 'Father of the Turks' (Ata = ancestor/father, Turk = Turk). It was an honorific surname bestowed by the Turkish Parliament on Mustafa Kemal in 1934 as part of the new Surname Law.

Which Turkish author wrote 'My Name Is Red' and 'Snow'?

Orhan Pamuk, born in Istanbul in 1952, wrote 'My Name Is Red' (1998) and 'Snow' (2002) and in 2006 became the first Turkish Nobel laureate, in Literature.

Which ancient wonder of the world stood at modern-day Bodrum in Turkey?

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was a tomb built around 350 BCE for Mausolus, Persian satrap of Caria; the English word 'mausoleum' derives from his name, and its foundations survive in modern Bodrum.

What is the name of the traditional Turkish flat pizza, often called 'Turkish pizza'?

Lahmacun is a thin round flatbread spread with minced lamb or beef, onion, tomato and parsley; unlike pizza it carries no cheese and is rolled up with herbs and lemon to eat by hand.

The Lycian Tomb of Amyntas, cut into a cliff above the harbour, overlooks which Turkish town?

The Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the cliff above Fethiye's harbour around 350 BC when Lycia was a Persian satrapy, is the grandest of the town's Lycian rock tombs.

Which sport is contested at Kırkpınar, the world's oldest continuously sanctioned sporting competition?

Oil wrestling: competitors douse themselves in olive oil and grapple in leather trousers called kispet; the Kırkpınar festival is traditionally dated to the mid-14th century, and its champion is titled başpehlivan.

The Hittite capital Hattusa lies near which modern Turkish town?

Hattusa's ruins lie just outside Boğazkale (formerly Boğazköy) in Çorum Province, inside the great bend of the Kızılırmak, the river the Greeks called the Halys.

Which Turkish city, known for its stone architecture, overlooks the plains of northern Syria?

Mardin's old city of honey-coloured stone houses and Artuqid madrasas climbs a hillside below a citadel, looking south over the Mesopotamian plain into Syria; its people include Kurds, Arabs, Mhallami and Assyrians.

Which Anatolian rock pioneer later became a beloved children's TV host?

Barış Manço, a pioneer of Anatolian rock, hosted the TRT show 7'den 77'ye for years, and his song 'Arkadaşım Eşşek' (My Friend the Donkey) became an unlikely children's anthem.

What is the largest lake in Turkey?

Lake Van, about 3,755 km², is a saline soda lake with no outlet lying 1,640 m above sea level in the far east; its salinity usually stops it freezing despite sub-zero winters.

The giant toppled stone heads on Mount Nemrut were built for which king?

Antiochus I of Commagene raised the sanctuary around 62 BC, flanking his burial mound with seated colossi of himself beside Greek-Persian fusion gods such as Zeus-Oromasdes; the heads have since toppled from the bodies.

Which Neolithic proto-city in southern Anatolia flourished around 7000 BC?

Çatalhöyük housed thousands in tightly packed mudbrick homes entered through the roof; its people buried their dead beneath the floors, and some skulls were plastered and painted with ochre to recreate faces.

Colonists from which Italian maritime republic built the Galata Tower in 1348?

Genoa's colonists built it in 1348 as the Tower of Christ, the high point of their walled enclave at Galata; at 66.9 m it was then the tallest building in the city.

What is the name of the mausoleum complex of the republic's founder, completed in 1953?

Anıtkabir, Atatürk's mausoleum in Ankara, was designed by Emin Onat and Orhan Arda and took nine years to build; his remains rested in the Ethnography Museum until the 1953 transfer ceremony.

Who wrote the words of 'İstiklal Marşı', Turkey's national anthem?

He at first refused to enter the competition because it carried a cash prize; 724 poems were submitted and the prize money went to a veterans' society.

On which date does Turkey mark National Sovereignty and Children's Day?

23 April commemorates the first sitting of the Grand National Assembly in Ankara in 1920; from 1927 it also became Children's Day, when children symbolically take ministers' seats.

Which 1923 peace settlement fixed the borders of the new Turkish republic?

The Treaty of Lausanne, signed 24 July 1923, replaced the unratified 1920 Treaty of Sèvres that would have partitioned Anatolia; İsmet İnönü negotiated it for Turkey over eight months.

Which building did the Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan regard as his masterpiece?

Sinan called the Selimiye Mosque his masterpiece, finishing it in 1575 in his eighties; its 31-metre dome rivals Hagia Sophia's, and he designed more than 300 structures in all.

Which city served as Ottoman capital from the 1360s until 1453?

Edirne, the ancient Adrianople, was the Ottoman capital from the 1360s until Constantinople fell in 1453; it sits just 7 km from the Greek border and 20 km from Bulgaria.

Which ancient town on the Tigris was submerged by the Ilısu Dam reservoir in 2020?

The 15th-century Zeynel Bey Mausoleum was moved on rails to a new cultural park in 2017 before the water rose over the rest of the town.

Who won Eurovision 2003 with 'Everyway That I Can', Turkey's only victory?

Sertab Erener, who started out as a backing singer for Sezen Aksu, won in Riga in 2003 and was awarded Turkey's State Medal of Distinguished Service for the victory.

Which Turkish director won the Palme d'Or in 2014 for 'Winter Sleep'?

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's three-hour 'Winter Sleep', set in a Cappadocian hotel, was the first Turkish Palme d'Or winner since Yılmaz Güney's 'Yol' shared the 1982 prize.

Aziz Sancar shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for mechanistic studies of what?

DNA repair: as a doctoral student in 1976 Sancar cloned the gene for photolyase, the enzyme that uses blue light to undo ultraviolet damage in bacteria, and later mapped nucleotide excision repair.

Weightlifter Naim Süleymanoğlu, 147 cm tall, was known by what nickname?

Naim Süleymanoğlu, 'Pocket Hercules', won three Olympic golds at Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, clean-and-jerking more than three times his own body weight at Seoul.

Hakan Şükür's 2002 World Cup goal for Turkey came how many seconds after kick-off?

Şükür scored 10.8 seconds into the third-place play-off against South Korea, which Turkey won 3–2, the fastest goal the World Cup had ever seen.

Which club, founded in 1903, was the first registered sports club in Turkey?

Beşiktaş began in 1903 as a gymnastics society in Istanbul's Serencebey district, years before Galatasaray (1905) and Fenerbahçe (1907), and its crest carries the Turkish flag.

Which 13.6 km rail tunnel, opened in 2013, links Europe and Asia beneath the sea?

Marmaray's 13.6 km tunnel section, including a 1.4 km immersed tube beneath the Bosphorus, opened on 29 October 2013; archaeological finds at Yenikapı delayed it, and the full 76.6 km line opened in 2019.

In 2022 the UN agreed to use which spelling as the country's official English name?

The UN switched to 'Türkiye' in June 2022 at Ankara's request; President Erdoğan had issued a circular in December 2021 saying the spelling best expressed the nation's culture and values.

Turkey grows well over half the world's supply of which nut?

Turkey's Black Sea coast, centred on Ordu and Giresun, grows around two-thirds of the world's hazelnuts, with Italy a distant second.

The Kangal livestock guardian dog is named after a district of which Turkish province?

Sivas Province's Kangal district gave the breed its name; the dog wears a black mask over a fawn-to-grey coat and has guarded flocks from wolves in central Anatolia for centuries.

Turkish rakı, which turns milky when water is added, is flavoured with what?

Aniseed flavours rakı: grape spirit (suma) is redistilled with aniseed in copper stills, and by law it must be at least 40% alcohol; the milky cloud when water is added is anethole coming out of solution.

The ring-shaped Turkish street bread simit is typically crusted with which seeds?

Simit is dipped in grape molasses and pressed into sesame seeds before baking, which gives the ring its crust; Greeks know the same bread as koulouri.

Karagöz and Hacivat are the lead characters of what traditional Turkish art form?

Karagöz is Turkish shadow play, with translucent camel-hide puppets worked behind a lit screen; Evliya Çelebi claimed it was performed at court as early as Bayezid I, and in Greece the hero lives on as Karagiozis.

The Basilica Cistern was built beneath the city during the reign of which emperor?

Justinian I had it built in 532, after the Nika riots; the largest of several hundred cisterns beneath the old city, it takes its name from the Stoa Basilica that once stood above it.

The Egyptian obelisk in the old Hippodrome was first raised by which pharaoh?

Thutmose III raised it at Karnak around 1450 BC; Constantius II shipped it to Alexandria in 357, and Theodosius I finally re-erected it in the Hippodrome in 390.

The 1925 Hat Law of the early republic outlawed which item of headgear?

The fez was banned; ironically Mahmud II had imposed it in 1829 to replace the turban and unify his subjects, and by 1925 Atatürk saw it as a badge of the Ottoman past.

Which sultan disbanded the janissary corps in the 1826 'Auspicious Incident'?

Mahmud II provoked the janissaries into revolt, then had artillery bombard their barracks; 6,000 or more were executed and a modern army, the Asakir-i Mansure, took their place.

Which Seljuk victory of 1071 opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement?

Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes was captured, the only time a Byzantine emperor became the prisoner of a Muslim commander.

Which Ottoman sultan was captured by Timur in 1402, triggering the Ottoman Interregnum?

Bayezid I, 'the Thunderbolt', lost the Battle of Ankara on the Çubuk plain in July 1402 and died in Timur's captivity the next year; his sons then fought an eleven-year civil war.

Which Ottoman ruler captured Bursa in 1326 and made it his capital?

Orhan, Osman's son, took Bursa in 1326 after a years-long blockade and made it the first true Ottoman capital; both he and his father are buried there.

Paul the Apostle was born in which city, now in Mersin Province?

Tarsus, Paul's birthplace, was the Roman capital of Cilicia and the scene of Mark Antony's first meeting with Cleopatra in 41 BC.

Saint Nicholas, the original Santa Claus, served as bishop of which Lycian city?

Nicholas was bishop of Myra, today's Demre, in the 4th century; born in the nearby port of Patara, his legendary gift of gold through a window for three sisters' dowries seeded the Santa story.

Sardis, seat of the fabulously rich King Croesus, was the capital of which kingdom?

Sardis was the Lydian capital until Cyrus the Great took it in 546 BC and made it a Persian satrapal seat; Shakespeare set Brutus and Cassius's camp there in Julius Caesar.

Gordion, site of the legendary knot, was the capital of which ancient kingdom?

Gordion was the Phrygian capital, home of King Midas; the mound at Yassıhüyük near the Sakarya–Porsuk confluence has a destruction layer of about 800 BC that anchors the region's chronology.

The cliffside Sumela Monastery stands in the Pontic Mountains near which city?

Sumela clings to a cliff in the Altındere valley about 45 km south of Trabzon; founded by Greek Orthodox monks, it was abandoned in the 1923 population exchange and later reopened as a museum.

The ruined medieval Armenian capital of Ani lies in which Turkish province?

Ani, the 'City of 1,001 Churches', was capital of the Bagratuni kingdom from 961 to 1045; its ruins stand in Kars Province above the Akhurian gorge that marks the Armenian border.

Antakya, the ancient Antioch, is the capital of which southernmost Turkish province?

Hatay, with Kocaeli and Sakarya, is one of only three provinces not named after its capital; it joined Turkey from the French Mandate in 1939, a transfer Syria long disputed.

The 1999 earthquake that killed over 17,000 people in Turkey is named after which city?

The epicentre was at Gölcük, across the bay from İzmit, which gave the quake its name; the magnitude 7.6 shock struck at 3:02 am on 17 August and lasted about 37 seconds, killing more than 17,000.

Tarkan's late-1990s hit 'Şımarık' is known to English-speaking listeners by what title?

'Şımarık', meaning 'spoilt', became 'Kiss Kiss' in English after its kissing-sound hook conquered Europe in 1999; Holly Valance's cover was a UK number one in 2002.

Turkey's first suspension bridge linking Europe and Asia was completed in which year?

The Bosphorus Bridge opened in October 1973 for the republic's 50th anniversary; its 1,074 m span was then the fourth-longest in the world and Europe's longest until the Humber Bridge in 1981.

Hit series Muhteşem Yüzyıl follows which slave girl who rose to become an imperial wife?

Hürrem Sultan, known in the West as Roxelana, was a slave from Ruthenia who became Suleiman's legal wife and a central figure of the 'Sultanate of Women'; the series premiered on Show TV in 2011.

Şanlıurfa is nicknamed 'City of Prophets' from the legend that it was whose hometown?

Legend makes Urfa the birthplace of Abraham, whom Nimrod hurled into a fire that God turned to water; the sacred carp of Balıklıgöl, Abraham's Pool, swim in the old city.

The Atatürk Dam, completed in 1990, stands on which river?

The Atatürk Dam, first planned as the Karababa Dam, is a rock-fill giant on the Euphrates and the keystone of the GAP project, generating power and irrigating the Harran plain.

Which 1936 agreement governs warship passage through the Turkish Straits?

The Montreux Convention, signed at the Montreux Palace in Switzerland on 20 July 1936, restored Turkish control of the Straits and limits the tonnage and stay of non-Black Sea warships.

Which ancient city in western Turkey held a library said to rival Alexandria's?

Pergamon's library was reckoned second only to Alexandria's, and the city gave parchment its name via Latin pergamena; Pliny's tale that its scribes invented parchment to beat a papyrus embargo is legend.

Which northeastern city is best known for the tea grown on its hillsides since the 1940s?

Rize's steep, rain-soaked hillsides grow most of Turkey's tea; cultivation took hold after the 1940 Tea Law, and Çaykur, the state tea company, is headquartered in the city.

The founder of the Turkish Republic was born in 1881 in which city, now in Greece?

Atatürk was born in Thessaloniki, then the Ottoman city of Selânik, in 1881; his father Ali Rıza Efendi was a title-deed clerk and timber trader, and the birthplace house stands beside the Turkish consulate.

At what time on 10 November does Turkey pause for a minute to remember its founder?

9:05 am on 10 November 1938 was the moment of Atatürk's death at Dolmabahçe Palace; each year at that minute sirens sound, traffic stops and the country stands in silence.

The word 'tulip' is thought to come from a Turkish word for which item?

Ottoman courtiers wore tulips on their turbans, and a translator may simply have confused the flower with the headgear.