168-556: Tekirdağ ( pronounced [teˈciɾdaː] ) is a city in Turkey . It is located on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara , in the region of East Thrace . The city forms the urban part of the Süleymanpaşa district, with a population of 186,421 in 2022. Tekirdağ is a commercial centre with a harbour for agricultural products (the harbour is being expanded to accommodate a new rail link to
336-724: A charter member of the United Nations. In 1950 Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe . After fighting as part of the UN forces in the Korean War , Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean . Military coups or memorandums, which happened in 1960 , 1971 , 1980 , and 1997 , complicated Turkey's transition to a democratic multiparty system . Between 1960 and
504-525: A civilian alternative to military service. Exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey ( Greek : Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή , romanized : I Antallagí ; Ottoman Turkish : مبادله , romanized : Mübâdele ; Turkish : Mübadele ) stemmed from the " Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations " signed at Lausanne , Switzerland , on 30 January 1923, by
672-617: A state that would encompass most of the territories claimed by Mustafa Kemal in his National Pact of 1920. The state of Turkey was headed by Mustafa Kemal's People's Party, which later became the Republican People's Party . The end of the War of Independence brought new administration to the region, but also brought new problems considering the demographic reconstruction of cities and towns, many of which had been abandoned by fleeing minority Christians. The Greco-Turkish War left many of
840-723: A Code with principles similar to the German Penal Code and German law generally. Administrative law is based on the French equivalent and procedural law generally shows the influence of the Swiss, German and French legal systems. Islamic principles do not play a part in the legal system. Law enforcement in Turkey is carried out by several agencies under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs . These agencies are
1008-638: A Greek zone of occupation in the defeated Ottoman Empire. This Greek occupation was designed to protect remaining Christian minorities, who had been massacred repeatedly in the Ottoman Empire before and during World War I: Adana massacre of 1909 , Armenian genocide of 1914–1923, Greek genocide 1914–1922. But, instead, it unleashed further massacres both of these Christians and now also of Muslims as both armies sought to secure their rule by eliminating any inhabitants whose existence could justify unfavorable borders. This continued, now in both directions,
1176-520: A depot for the produce of Edirne province. However, its trade suffered badly when Alexandroupolis became the terminus of the railway up the river Maritsa . Rhaedestus remains a titular see of the Roman Catholic Church . However, Roman Catholic Church activity has long ceased. Catholic bishops Tekirdağ is situated on the northern coast of the Sea of Marmara , 135 kilometres (84 miles) west of Istanbul . Its picturesque bay
1344-418: A faction of society ready to challenge the emergence of single-party rule in Turkey. Although it is very unlikely that an opposition based on an economic elite made up of an ethnic and religious minority would have been accepted as a legitimate political party by the majority population. In Greece, contrary to Turkey, the arrival of the refugees broke the dominance of the monarchy and old politicians relative to
1512-765: A guide for developing "orthodox expressions of basic Christian teachings". The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centered in Constantinople during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages . The eastern half of the Empire survived the conditions that caused the fall of the West in the 5th century AD, and continued to exist until
1680-477: A large percentage belonged to Greek , Roma , Pomak , Macedonian , Cham Albanian , Megleno-Romanian , and Dönmeh Muslim communities. For both communities, the population exchange had traumatic psychological effects. Professor Ayse Lahur Kirtunc, a Cretan Muslim expelled to Turkey stated in an interview: "It's late for us to be preserving our recollections; The essence of them, the first essence, has vanished already. Those first migrants took away their memories;
1848-766: A mixture of " Turkish, Persian and Islamic influences ". In the latter half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began penetrating into medieval Armenia and Anatolia. At the time, Anatolia was a diverse and largely Greek-speaking region after previously being Hellenized . The Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, and later established the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum . During this period, there were also Turkish principalities such as Danishmendids . Seljuk arrival started
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#17327879777952016-666: A peace conference was convened at Lausanne , Switzerland, in order to draft a new treaty to replace the Treaty of Sèvres . Invitations to participate in the conference were extended to both the Ankara Government and the Istanbul-based Ottoman Government , but the abolition of the Sultanate by the Ankara Government on 1 November 1922 and the subsequent departure of Mehmet VI from Turkey left
2184-652: A period of time imposed significant costs on the Greek economy such as building housing and schools, importing enough food, providing health care, etc. Greece needed a 12,000,000 franc loan from the Refugee Settlement Commission of the League of Nations as there was not enough money in the Greek treasury to handle these costs. Increasing the problems was the Immigration Act of 1924 passed by
2352-658: A person. As an ethnonym , the etymology is still unknown. In addition to usage in languages such as Chinese in the 6th century, the earliest mention of Turk ( 𐱅𐰇𐰺𐰜 , türü̲k̲ ; or 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰚 , türk/tẄrk ) in Turkic languages comes from the Second Turkic Khaganate . In Byzantine sources in the 10th century, the name Tourkia was used for defining two medieval states: Hungary ( Western Tourkia ); and Khazaria ( Eastern Tourkia ). The Mamluk Sultanate , with its ruling elite of Turkic origin,
2520-760: A process of ethnic cleansing in Asia Minor that had been conducted initially by the Ottoman state against its minorities during World War I. On January 31, 1917, the Chancellor of Germany, allied with the Ottomans during World War I , was reporting that: The indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by
2688-650: A reassertion of the ancient, indigenous culture of the Hattian cities of Anatolia". Before 1200 BC, there were four Greek-speaking settlements in Anatolia, including Miletus . Around 1000 BC, Greeks started migrating to the west coast of Anatolia. These eastern Greek settlements played a vital role in shaping the Archaic Greek civilization; important cities included Miletus , Ephesus , Halicarnassus , Smyrna (now İzmir ) and Byzantium (now Istanbul ),
2856-458: A response to violence in the Balkans; 'there were', in any event, 'over a million Turks without food or shelter in countries in which neither Europe nor America took nor was willing to take any interest'. The population exchange was seen as the best form of minority protection as well as "the most radical and humane remedy" of all. Nansen believed that what was on the negotiating table at Lausanne
3024-531: A rich and diverse cuisine , Turkey is the fifth most visited country in the world. Turchia , meaning "the land of the Turks", had begun to be used in European texts for Anatolia by the end of the 12th century. As a word in Turkic languages , Turk may mean "strong, strength, ripe" or "flourishing, in full strength". It may also mean ripe as in for a fruit or "in the prime of life, young, and vigorous" for
3192-420: A strange new country, ... registering, valuing and liquidating their individual property which they abandon, and ... securing to them the payment of their just claims to the value of this property". The agreement promised that the possessions of the refugees would be protected and allowed migrants to carry "portable" belongings freely with themselves. It was required that possessions not carried across
3360-563: A way of weakening the Venizelist movement had greatly increased the hostility felt in "new Greece" towards the House of Glücksburg . Furthermore, the fact that it was under King Constantine's leadership that Greece had been defeated in 1922 together with the indifference shown by Greek authorities in Smyrna (modern İzmir, Turkey) towards rescuing the threatened Greek communities of Anatolia in
3528-779: A way to gain votes. As the largest number of refugees were settled in Macedonia, which was part of the "new Greece" (i.e. the areas gained after the Balkan Wars of 1912–13), they shared in the resentment against the way that men from "old Greece" (i.e. the area that was Greece before 1912) dominated politics, the civil service, judiciary, etc., and tended to treat "new Greece" like it was a conquered country. In general, people from "old Greece" tended to be more royalist in their sympathies while people from "new Greece" tended to be more Venizelist. The fact that in 1916 King Constantine I had contemplated giving up "new "Greece" to Bulgaria as
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#17327879777953696-460: A week or two of snow between the months of December and March. Highest recorded temperature:40.2 °C (104.4 °F) on 27 June 2007 Lowest recorded temperature:−13.5 °C (7.7 °F) on 3 January 1942 The Tekirdağ area is the site of many holiday homes, as the city is only two hours drive from Istanbul via a new four-lane highway. The villages of Şarköy , Mürefte and Kumbağ are particularly popular with Turkish tourists. The Marmara Sea
3864-832: Is twinned with: Turkey Turkey , officially the Republic of Türkiye , is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia , with a smaller part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe . It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia , Armenia , Azerbaijan , and Iran to the east; Iraq , Syria , and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; and the Aegean Sea , Greece , and Bulgaria to
4032-746: Is Syria, with which Turkey had cut its relations after the start of the Syrian civil war . There are disputes with Greece over maritime boundaries and with Cyprus . In 2018, the Turkish military and the Turkish-backed forces began an operation in Syria aimed at ousting US-backed YPG (which Turkey considers to be an offshoot of the outlawed PKK ) from the enclave of Afrin . Turkey has also conducted airstrikes in Iraqi Kurdistan , which
4200-534: Is a unitary presidential republic . Turkey is a founding member of the OECD , G20 , and Organization of Turkic States . With a geopolitically significant location, Turkey is a regional power and an early member of NATO . An EU candidate , Turkey is part of the EU Customs Union , CoE , OIC , and TURKSOY . Turkey has coastal plains, a high central plateau , and various mountain ranges; its climate
4368-531: Is a prison next to the rakı distillery and another north of the city on the road to Muratlı. On the eastern edge of the city is the Namık Kemal University , founded in 2006, which has three faculties. This part of Turkey is well known for its high quality rakı . State-owned until the 1990s, the distilleries are now in private hands and the wine and rakı industries are undergoing a renewal despite being hampered by high taxation on alcohol. Tekirdağ
4536-423: Is backed by the promontory of the mountain which gives its name to the city, Tekir Dağı (ancient Combos), a spur of about 2000 ft. that rises into the hilly plateau to the north. Between Tekirdağ and Şarköy is another mountain, Ganos Dağı . Tekirdağ has a Mediterranean climate ( Köppen : Csa , Trewartha : Cs ). Summers are hot and humid whilst winters are cool and wet. Snowfall is somewhat common, with
4704-620: Is divided into districts ( ilçe ), for a total of 973 districts. Turkey is also subdivided into 7 regions ( bölge ) and 21 subregions for geographic, demographic and economic measurements, surveys and classifications; this does not refer to an administrative division. Turkey is a presidential republic within a multi-party system . The current constitution was adopted in 1982 . In the Turkish unitary system, citizens are subject to three levels of government : national, provincial, and local. The local government 's duties are commonly split between municipal governments and districts, in which
4872-588: Is evident in the first article of the Convention which states: "As from 1st May, 1923, there shall take place a compulsory exchange of Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion established in Turkish territory, and of Greek nationals of the Moslem religion established in Greek territory." The agreement defined the groups subject to exchange as Muslim and Greek Orthodox . This classification follows
5040-541: Is particularly true in the case of ethnic Albanians who inhabited the Çamëria (Greek: Τσαμουριά) region of Epirus . During the deliberations held at Lausanne, the question of exactly who was Greek, Turkish or Albanian was routinely brought up. Greek and Albanian representatives determined that the Albanians in Greece, who mostly lived in the northwestern part of the state, were not all mixed, and were distinguishable from
5208-461: Is polluted but there are still a number of public beaches near Tekirdağ, especially the Yeniçiftlik beaches. Most Ottoman wooden buildings have been replaced by concrete apartment blocks although some are being restored or replaced with attractive replicas. Except for the , and the narrow streets that help one imagine life in the Ottoman period, the city lacks antique charm. One reason to visit
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5376-442: Is temperate with harsher conditions in the interior. Home to three biodiversity hotspots , Turkey is prone to frequent earthquakes and is highly vulnerable to climate change . Turkey has a universal healthcare system , growing access to education , and increasing levels of innovativeness . It is a leading TV content exporter. With 21 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 30 UNESCO intangible cultural heritage inscriptions, and
5544-476: Is the Main Opposition Leader . The last parliamentary and presidential elections were in 2023. The Constitutional Court can strip the public financing of political parties that it deems anti-secular or having ties to terrorism , or ban their existence altogether. The electoral threshold for political parties at national level is seven percent of the votes. Smaller parties can avoid
5712-514: Is the local delicacy, the small spicy cylindrical grilled meatballs called Tekirdağ köftesi , traditionally followed by courses of a sweet local cheese and semolina pudding . The inland parts of Tekirdağ province offer fertile farmland suitable for winter wheat, sunflowers, cherries and grapes for wine-making. Both the east–west highway (the Via Egnatia of Roman times) and the highway north toward Muratlı and Lüleburgaz are four lanes. There
5880-644: The Kayı tribe of the Oghuz Turks . Ottomans started annexing the nearby Turkish beyliks (principalities) in Anatolia and expanded into the Balkans . Mehmed II completed Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople , on 29 May 1453. Selim I united Anatolia under Ottoman rule. Turkification continued as Ottomans mixed with various indigenous people in Anatolia and
6048-635: The 1913 coup d'état , the Three Pashas took control of the Ottoman government. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. During the war, the empire's Armenian subjects were deported to Syria as part of the Armenian genocide . As a result, an estimated 600,000 to more than 1 million, or up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed. The Turkish government has refused to acknowledge
6216-478: The Aegean Islands of Imbros (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada). In the event, those Greeks who had temporarily fled these regions, particularly Istanbul, before the entrance of the Turkish army were not permitted to return to their homes by Turkey afterwards. Greece, with a population of just over 5,000,000 people, had to absorb 1,221,489 new citizens from Turkey. The punitive measures carried out by
6384-402: The Aegean Sea be recorded in lists; these lists were to be submitted to both governments for reimbursement. After a commission was established to deal with the particular issue of belongings (mobile and immobile) of the populations, this commission would decide the total sum to pay persons for their immovable belongings (houses, cars, land, etc.) It was also promised that in their new settlement,
6552-664: The Allies in the aftermath of World War I initiated the Turkish National Movement . Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha , a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli , the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920). The Turkish Provisional Government in Ankara , which had declared itself
6720-676: The Arabs , Albanians , Russians , Serbs , Romanians of the Greek Orthodox religion; the Albanian , Bulgarian , Greek Muslims of Epirus , and the Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox. In Thessaloniki, which had the largest Jewish population in the Balkans, competition emerged between the Sephardic Jews who spoke Ladino and the refugees for jobs and businesses. Owing to an increase in antisemitism, many of
6888-648: The Armistice of Mudanya on 11 October 1922. On 1 November 1922, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of monarchical Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Turkish state as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire. On 4 October 1923,
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7056-688: The Balkan Wars , World War I , and the Turkish War of Independence . The convention affected the populations as follows: almost all Greek Orthodox Christians (Greek- or Turkish-speaking) of Asia Minor including the Greek Orthodox populations from middle Anatolia ( Cappadocian Greeks ), the Ionia region (e.g. Smyrna , Aivali ), the Pontus region (e.g. Trabzon , Samsun ), the former Russian Caucasus province of Kars ( Kars Oblast ), Prusa (Bursa),
7224-414: The Balkans , Caucasus , and Crimea . Under the control of the Three Pashas , the Ottoman Empire entered World War I in 1914, during which the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian , Greek , and Assyrian subjects. Following Ottoman defeat, the Turkish War of Independence resulted in the abolition of the sultanate and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne . The Republic
7392-423: The Bithynia region (e.g., Nicomedia ( İzmit ), Chalcedon ( Kadıköy ), East Thrace , and other regions were either expelled or formally denaturalized from Turkish territory. On the other hand, the Muslim population in Greece not having been affected by the recent Greek–Turkish conflict was almost intact. Thus c. 354,647 Muslims moved to Turkey after the agreement. Those Muslims were predominantly Turkish, but
7560-408: The Cold War 's start. Following threats from the Soviet Union , Turkey sought to ally with the United States and joined NATO in 1952. Overall, Turkey aims for good relations with Central Asia , the Caucasus , Russia, the Middle East , and Iran. With the West, Turkey also aims to keep its arrangements. By trading with the east and joining the EU, Turkey pursues economic growth. Turkey joined
7728-410: The EEC in 1987, joined the European Union Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. Customs Union had an important impact on the Turkish manufacturing sector. In 2014, prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won Turkey's first direct presidential election . On 15 July 2016, an unsuccessful coup attempt tried to oust the government. According to
7896-408: The European Union Customs Union in 1995, but its EU accession talks are frozen as of 2024. Turkey has been called an emerging power, a middle power , and a regional power . Turkey has sought closer relations with the Central Asian Turkic states after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Closer relations with Azerbaijan , a culturally close country, was achieved. Turkey is a founding member of
8064-425: The Free Republican Party in 1930 could not prolong the rule of a single-party without an opposition. Transition to multiparty politics depended on the creation of stronger economic groups in the mid-1940s, which was stifled due to the exodus of the Greek middle and upper economic classes. Hence, if the groups of Orthodox Christians had stayed in Turkey after the formation of the nation-state, then there would have been
8232-402: The Galatians . When Pergamon requested assistance in its conflict with the Seleucids, Rome intervened in Anatolia in the second century BC. Without an heir, Pergamum's king left the kingdom to Rome, which was annexed as province of Asia . Roman influence grew in Anatolia afterwards. Following Asiatic Vespers massacre, and Mithridatic Wars with Pontus , Rome emerged victorious. Around
8400-426: The General Directorate of Security , the Gendarmerie General Command and the Coast Guard Command . In the years of government by the Justice and Development Party and Erdoğan, particularly since 2013, the independence and integrity of the Turkish judiciary has increasingly been said to be in doubt by institutions, parliamentarians and journalists both within and outside of Turkey, because of political interference in
8568-444: The Greco-Turkish War and two days after their accession of the Armistice of Mudanya . The request intended to normalize relations de jure , since the majority of surviving Greek inhabitants of Turkey had fled from recent massacres to Greece by that time. Venizelos proposed a "compulsory exchange of Greek and Turkish populations," and asked Fridtjof Nansen to make the necessary arrangements. The new state of Turkey also envisioned
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#17327879777958736-428: The International Organization of Turkic Culture and Organization of Turkic States . It is also a member of Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe , Council of Europe , and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation . Following the Arab Spring , Turkey had problems with countries such as United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Relations with these countries have improved since then. The exception
8904-422: The Ionian School of philosophy , thereby laying the foundations of rationalism and Western philosophy . Cyrus attacked eastern Anatolia in 547 BC, and Achaemenid Empire eventually expanded into western Anatolia . In the east, the Armenian province was part of the Achaemenid Empire. Following the Greco-Persian Wars , the Greek city-states of the Anatolian Aegean coast regained independence, but most of
9072-436: The Istanbul Pogrom (1955) directed primarily against the ethnic Greek community, and against the Armenian and Jewish minorities, greatly accelerated emigration of Greeks, reducing the 200,000-strong Greek minority in 1924 to just over 2,500 in 2006. The 1955 Istanbul Pogrom and the 1964 expulsion of Istanbul Greeks , caused most of the Greek inhabitants remaining in Istanbul to flee to Greece. The population profile of Crete
9240-403: The Ottoman Empire's name . In December 2021, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for expanded official usage of Türkiye , saying that Türkiye "represents and expresses the culture, civilization, and values of the Turkish nation in the best way". In May 2022, the Turkish government requested the United Nations and other international organizations to use Türkiye officially in English;
9408-405: The Ottoman census of 1910 which included Western Thrace , Macedonia and Epirus based on the number of Greeks who left for Greece just before World War I and the 1.3 million who arrived in the population exchanges of 1923, and the 300–900,000 estimated to have been massacred. A revised count suggests 620,000 in Eastern Thrace including Constantinople (260,000, 30% of the city's population at
9576-475: The Proto-Turkic language originated in Central-East Asia. Initially, Proto- Turkic speakers were potentially both hunter-gatherers and farmers; they later became nomadic pastoralists . Early and medieval Turkic groups exhibited a wide range of both East Asian and West-Eurasian physical appearances and genetic origins, in part through long-term contact with neighboring peoples such as Iranic , Mongolic , Tocharian , Uralic , and Yeniseian peoples. During
9744-406: The Republic of Turkey , such as the 1932 parliamentary law which barred Greek citizens in Turkey from a series of 30 trades and professions from tailor and carpenter to medicine, law, and real estate, correlated with a reduction in the Greek population of Istanbul, and of that of Imbros and Tenedos. Most property abandoned by Greeks who were subject to the population exchange was confiscated by
9912-411: The Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) . After these wars, the city returned to Ottoman rule. In 1905, the city had a population of about 35,000, of whom about half were Greeks . Tekirdağ was occupied by the Bulgarian army on 11 November 1912. The city was liberated on 13 July 1913. Finally, Tekirdağ was occupied by the Greek army on 20 July 1920 during the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1922) . After
10080-431: The Second Balkan War (1913). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in estimated 5 million deaths, with more than 3 million in Balkans; the casualties included Turks. Five to seven or seven to nine million refugees migrated into modern-day Turkey from the Balkans , Caucasus , Crimea , and Mediterranean islands, shifting
10248-414: The Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925 and the Dersim rebellion in 1937. İsmet İnönü became the country's second president following Atatürk's death in 1938. In 1939, the Republic of Hatay voted in favor of joining Turkey with a referendum. Turkey remained neutral during almost all of World War II , but entered the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945 . Later that year, Turkey became
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#173278797779510416-407: The Supreme Electoral Council lifted a rule that required each ballot to have an official stamp. The opposition parties claimed that as many as 2.5 million ballots without a stamp were accepted as valid. Turkey has a unitary structure in terms of public administration, and the provinces are subordinate to the central government in Ankara . In province centers the government is represented by
10584-406: The Turkification process in Anatolia; there were Turkic/Turkish migrations, intermarriages, and conversions into Islam. The shift took several centuries and happened gradually. Members of Islamic mysticism orders, such as Mevlevi Order , played a role in the Islamization of the diverse people of Anatolia. Seljuk expansion was one of the reasons for the Crusades . In 13th century, there
10752-462: The Turkish War of Independence . The surviving Christian minorities within Turkey, particularly the Armenians and the Greeks, had sought protection from the Allies and thus continued to be seen as an internal problem, and as an enemy, by the Turkish National Movement . This was exacerbated by the Allies authorizing Greece to occupy Ottoman regions ( Occupation of Smyrna ) with a large surviving Greek population in 1919 and by an Allied proposal to protect
10920-435: The Turks . The government in Ankara still expected a thousand "Turkish-speakers" from the Çamëria to arrive in Turkey for settlement in Erdek , Ayvalık , Menteşe , Antalya , Senkile , Mersin , and Adana . Ultimately, the Greek authorities decided to deport thousands of Muslims from Thesprotia , Larissa , Langadas , Drama , Edessa , Serres , Florina , Kilkis , Kavala , and Thessaloniki . Between 1923 and 1930,
11088-484: The Venetians following the Latin occupation of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade . In the Ottoman period the city was successively a part of the Rumelia Eyalet , then of the Province of the Kapudan Pasha , the Silistra Eyalet , and Edirne Vilayet . After 1849 it became the seat of the Sanjak of Tekfürtaği . Tekirdağ was occupied twice by the Russian army: firstly, on 22 August 1829 during Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829) and then on 1 February 1878 during
11256-407: The Yabgu Khaganate . In 1040, the Seljuks defeated the Ghaznavids at the Battle of Dandanaqan and established the Seljuk Empire in Greater Khorasan . Baghdad , the Abbasid Caliphate 's capital and center of the Islamic world , was taken by Seljuks in 1055. Given the role Khurasani traditions played in art, culture, and political traditions in the empire, the Seljuk period is described as
11424-598: The adoption of Christianity as the state religion , and the predominance of Greek instead of Latin , modern historians continue to make a distinction between the earlier Roman Empire and the later Byzantine Empire . In the early Byzantine Empire period, the Anatolian coastal areas were Greek speaking. In addition to natives, interior Anatolia had diverse groups such as Goths , Celts , Persians and Jews . Interior Anatolia had been "heavily Hellenized". Anatolian languages eventually became extinct after Hellenization of Anatolia. According to historians and linguists,
11592-420: The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in the Mediterranean world . The term Byzantine Empire was only coined following the empire's demise; its citizens referred to the polity as the "Roman Empire" and to themselves as Romans . Due to the imperial seat's move from Rome to Byzantium ,
11760-405: The right to vote and stand as a candidate at elections. Universal suffrage for both sexes has been applied throughout Turkey since 1934. In Turkey, turnout rates of both local and general elections are high compared to many other countries, which usually stands higher than 80%. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is currently serving as the head of state and head of government . Özgür Özel
11928-516: The 1st century BC, Rome expanded into parts of Pontus and Bithynia , while turning rest of Anatolian states into Roman satellites. Several conflicts with Parthians ensued , with peace and wars alternating. According to Acts of the Apostles , early Christian Church had significant growth in Anatolia because of St Paul's efforts. Letters from St. Paul in Anatolia comprise the oldest Christian literature . Under Roman authority, ecumenical councils such as Council of Nicaea (Iznik) in 325 served as
12096-682: The 9th and 10th centuries CE, the Oghuz were a Turkic group that lived in the Caspian and Aral steppes. Partly due to pressure from the Kipchaks , the Oghuz migrated into Iran and Transoxiana . They mixed with Iranic-speaking groups in the area and converted to Islam . Oghuz Turks were also known as Turkoman . The Seljuks originated from the Kınık branch of the Oghuz Turks who resided in
12264-465: The Allied occupation of Turkey ended with the withdrawal of the last Allied troops from Istanbul . The Turkish Republic was officially proclaimed on 29 October 1923 in Ankara, the country's new capital. The Lausanne Convention stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey . Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first president and introduced many reforms . The reforms aimed to transform
12432-583: The Anatolian interior, which met resistance in some places. Following Alexander's death, the Seleucids ruled large parts of Anatolia, while native Anatolian states emerged in the Marmara and Black Sea areas. In eastern Anatolia, the kingdom of Armenia appeared. In third century BC, Celts invaded central Anatolia and continued as a major ethnic group in the area for around 200 years. They were known as
12600-478: The Ankara Government as the sole governing entity in Anatolia. The Ankara Government, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, moved swiftly to implement its nationalist programme, which did not allow for the presence of significant non-Turkish minorities in Western Anatolia. In one of his first diplomatic acts as the sole governing representative of Turkey, Atatürk negotiated and signed the " Convention Concerning
12768-523: The Balkans. The Ottoman Empire was a global power during the reigns of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent . In the 16th and 17th centuries, Sephardic Jews moved into Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from Spain. From the second half of the 18th century onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to decline . The Tanzimat reforms, initiated by Mahmud II in 1839, aimed to modernize
12936-575: The Communists led to a rebellion that saw the government lose control of Thessaloniki for a time. Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas , with the support of the King, responded to the communists by establishing an authoritarian regime in 1936, the 4th of August Regime. In these ways, the population exchange indirectly facilitated changes in the political regimes of Greece and Turkey during the interwar period . Many immigrants died of epidemic illnesses during
13104-531: The Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations " on 30 January 1923 with Eleftherios Venizelos and the government of Greece . The convention had a retroactive effect for all the population exchanges that took place since the declaration of the First Balkan War on 18 October 1912 (article 3). However, by the time the agreement was to take effect on 1 May 1923, most of the pre-war Greek population of Aegean Turkey had already fled. The exchange involved
13272-485: The Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations at the Lausanne Conference of January 30, 1923, was based on ethnic identity. The population exchange made it legally possible for both Turkey and Greece to cleanse their ethnic minorities in the formation of the nation-state . Nonetheless, religion was utilized as a legitimizing factor or a "safe criterion" in marking ethnic groups as Turkish or as Greek in
13440-658: The First World War, Nansen had also created a new travel document for displaced persons of the World War in the process. He was chosen to be in charge of the peaceful resolution of the Greek-Turkish war of 1919–22. Although a compulsory exchange on this scale had never been attempted in modern history, Balkan precedents, such as the Greco-Bulgarian population exchange of 1919, were available. Because of
13608-719: The Great ; Hellenization continued during the Roman and Byzantine eras. The Seljuk Turks began migrating into Anatolia in the 11th century, starting the Turkification process. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into Turkish principalities . Beginning in 1299, the Ottomans united the principalities and expanded ; Mehmed II conquered Istanbul in 1453 . During
13776-585: The Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical context (e.g. the Bishop of Raidestos, the Metropolitanate of Heraclia and Raidestos). The history of the city of Tekirdağ dates back to around 4000 BC . In Xenophon 's Anabasis it is mentioned as part of the kingdom of the Thracian king Seuthes . It is also mentioned as Bisanthe by Herodotus (VII, 137). The city was a Samian colony. Procopius chronicled
13944-670: The Hittite kingdom was disintegrating, further waves of Indo-European peoples migrated from southeastern Europe, which was followed by warfare. The Thracians were also present in modern-day Turkish Thrace . It is not known if the Trojan war is based on historical events. Troy's Late Bronze Age layers matches most with Iliad 's story. Around 750 BC, Phrygia had been established, with its two centers in Gordium and modern-day Kayseri . Phrygians spoke an Indo-European language, which
14112-753: The Jews of Thessaloniki became Zionists and immigrated to the Palestine Mandate in the interwar period . Because the refugees tended to vote for the Venizelist Liberals, the Jews and remaining Muslims in Thrace and Macedonia tended to vote for the anti-Venizelist parties. A group of refugee merchants in Thessaloniki founded the republican and anti-Semitic EEE ( Ethniki Enosis Ellados - National Union of Greece ) party in 1927 to press for
14280-532: The Ottoman Empire led to a rise in nationalist sentiment among its various subject peoples , leading to increased ethnic tensions which occasionally burst into violence, such as the Hamidian massacres of Armenians , which claimed up to 300,000 lives. Ottoman territories in Europe ( Rumelia ) were lost in the First Balkan War (1912–1913). Ottomans managed to recover some territory in Europe, such as Edirne , in
14448-669: The Ottoman state in line with the progress that had been made in Western Europe. The Ottoman constitution of 1876 was the first among Muslim states, but was short-lived . As the empire gradually shrank in size, military power and wealth; especially after the Ottoman economic crisis and default in 1875 which led to uprisings in the Balkan provinces that culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) . The decline of
14616-538: The Ottomans in the 14th century (in western languages it is usually rendered as Rodosto ). After the 18th century it was called Tekfurdağı , based on the Turkish word tekfur , meaning "Byzantine lord". In time, the name mutated into the Turkish Tekirdağ , and this became the official name under the Turkish Republic. The historical name "Rhaedestos" (transcribed also as Raidestos) is still used in
14784-674: The President, General Staff , Air Force , Naval Force , and Land Force usually report to the Minister of National Defence. The Gendarmerie General Command and the Coast Guard Command are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior . Military service is required for 6–12 months for men, which is reduced to one month after paying a fee. Turkey does not recognize conscientious objection and does not offer
14952-670: The Republic, Turkey adopted a civil law legal system, replacing Sharia -derived Ottoman law . The Civil Code , adopted in 1926, was based on the Swiss Civil Code of 1907 and the Swiss Code of Obligations of 1911. Although it underwent a number of changes in 2002, it retains much of the basis of the original Code. The Criminal Code , originally based on the Italian Criminal Code , was replaced in 2005 by
15120-600: The Republicans. In the elections of the 1920s most of the newcomers supported Eleftherios Venizelos . In December 1916, during the Noemvriana , refugees from an earlier wave of persecution in the Ottoman Empire had been attacked by royalist troops as Venizelists , which contributed to the perception in the 1920s that the Venizelist side of the National Schism was much friendlier to refugees from Anatolia than
15288-456: The Turkish government by declaring them "abandoned" and therefore state owned. Properties were confiscated arbitrarily by labeling the former owners as "fugitives" under the court of law. Additionally, real property of many Greeks was declared "unclaimed" and ownership was subsequently assumed by the state. Consequently, the greater part of the Greeks' real property was sold at nominal value by
15456-402: The Turkish government, there are 13,251 arrested or convicted people in jail as of 2024, related to the 2016 coup attempt. With a referendum in 2017 , the parliamentary republic was replaced by an executive presidential system . The office of the prime minister was abolished, and its powers and duties were transferred to the president. On the referendum day, while the voting was still underway,
15624-511: The Turkish government. Sub-committees that operated under the framework of the Committee for Abandoned properties had undertaken the verification of persons to be exchanged in order to continue the task of selling abandoned property. The Varlık Vergisi capital gains tax imposed in 1942 on wealthy non-Muslims in Turkey, also served to reduce the economic potential of ethnic Greek business people in Turkey. Furthermore, violent incidents such as
15792-436: The Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger, and illness. The abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks. At the end of World War I one of the Ottomans' foremost generals, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , continued the fight against the attempted Allied occupation of Turkey in
15960-485: The U.S. Congress, which sharply limited the number of immigrants the United States was willing to take annually, which removed one of the traditional "safety valves" that Greece had in periods of high unemployment. In the 1920s, the refugees, most of whom went to Greek Macedonia, were known for their staunch loyalty to Venizelism . According to the 1928 census 45% of the population in Macedonia were refugees, while
16128-1090: The UN agreed. Present-day Turkey has been inhabited by modern humans since the late Paleolithic period and contains some of the world's oldest Neolithic sites. Göbekli Tepe is close to 12,000 years old. Parts of Anatolia include the Fertile Crescent , an origin of agriculture . Other important Anatolian Neolithic sites include Çatalhöyük and Alaca Höyük . Neolithic Anatolian farmers differed genetically from farmers in Iran and Jordan Valley . These early Anatolian farmers also migrated into Europe , starting around 9,000 years ago. Troy's earliest layers go back to around 4500 BC. Anatolia's historical records start with clay tablets from approximately around 2000 BC that were found in modern-day Kültepe . These tablets belonged to an Assyrian trade colony . The languages in Anatolia at that time included Hattian, Hurrian, Hittite , Luwian , and Palaic . Hattian
16296-491: The age of 65. Turkish politics have become increasingly associated with democratic backsliding , being described as a competitive authoritarian system. Elections in Turkey are held for six functions of government: presidential (national), parliamentary (national), municipality mayors (local), district mayors (local), provincial or municipal council members (local), and muhtars (local). Referendums are also held occasionally. Every Turkish citizen who has turned 18 has
16464-415: The autumn of 1922, around 900,000 Greeks arrived in Greece. According to Fridtjof Nansen , before the final stage in 1922, of the 900,000 Greek refugees , a third were from Eastern Thrace , with the other two thirds being from Asia Minor . The estimate for the Greeks living within the present day borders of Turkey in 1914 could be as high as 2.130 million, a figure higher than the 1.8 million Greeks in
16632-490: The center of the Ottoman Empire to Anatolia. In addition to a small number of Jews, the refugees were overwhelmingly Muslim; they were both Turkish and non-Turkish people, such as Circassians and Crimean Tatars . Paul Mojzes has called the Balkan Wars an "unrecognized genocide", where multiple sides were both victims and perpetrators. Circassian refugees included the survivors of the Circassian genocide . Following
16800-407: The cities were seen by the authorities as centers of poverty and crime that might also become centers of social unrest. About 50% of the refugees were settled in urban areas. Regardless of whether they settled in urban or rural areas, the vast majority of the refugees arrived in Greece impoverished and often sickly, placing enormous demands on the Greek health care system. Tensions between locals and
16968-519: The departed Greek populations have abandoned. The departure from Greece of its Muslim citizens would create the possibility of rendering self-supporting a great proportion of the refugees now concentrated in the towns and in different parts of Greece". Nansen recognized that the difficulties were truly "immense", acknowledging that the population-exchange would require "the displacement of populations of many more than 1,000,000 people". He advocated: "uprooting these people from their homes, transferring them to
17136-480: The departure of the independent and strong economic elites, i.e. the Greek Orthodox populations, left the dominant state elites unchallenged. In fact, Caglar Keyder noted that "what this drastic measure [Greek-Turkish population exchange] indicates is that during the war years Turkey lost ... [around 90 percent of the pre-war] commercial class, such that when the Republic was formed, the bureaucracy found itself unchallenged". The emerging business groups that supported
17304-499: The electoral threshold by forming an alliance with other parties. Independent candidates are not subject to an electoral threshold. On the right side of the Turkish political spectrum , parties like the Democrat Party , Justice Party , Motherland Party , and Justice and Development Party became the most popular political parties in Turkey, winning numerous elections. Turkish right-wing parties are more likely to embrace
17472-486: The end of 1922, the vast majority of native Pontian Greeks had already fled Turkey due to the genocide against them (1914–1922), and the Ionian Greek Ottoman citizens had also fled due to the defeat of the Greek army in the later Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) , which had led to reprisal killings. The most common estimates for Ottoman Greeks killed from 1914 to 1923 range from 300,000 to 900,000. For
17640-545: The end of the 20th century, the prominent leaders in Turkish politics who achieved multiple election victories were Süleyman Demirel , Bülent Ecevit and Turgut Özal . PKK started a "campaign of terrorist attacks on civilian and military targets" in the 1980s. It is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union. Tansu Çiller became the first female prime minister of Turkey in 1993. Turkey applied for full membership of
17808-501: The events as genocide and states that Armenians were only "relocated " from the eastern war zone. Genocidal campaigns were also committed against the empire's other minority groups such as the Assyrians and Greeks . Following the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought the partition of the Ottoman Empire through the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres . The occupation of Istanbul (1918) and İzmir (1919) by
17976-668: The executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. The government comprises three branches: first is the legislative branch, which is Grand National Assembly of Turkey ; second is the executive branch, which is the President of Turkey ; and third is the judicial branch, which includes the Constitutional Court , the Court of Cassation and Court of Jurisdictional Disputes . The Parliament has 600 seats, distributed among
18144-611: The figure was 35% in Greek Thrace, 19% in Athens , and 18% in the islands of the Aegean Sea; overall, the census showed that 1,221,849 people or 20% of the Greek population were refugees. The majority of the refugees who settled in cities like Thessaloniki and Athens were deliberately placed by the authorities in shantytowns on the outskirts of the cities in order to subject them to police control. The refugee communities in
18312-586: The genocide of Syriacs, Assyrian, Greeks, Armenians, and Chaldeans, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The Greek–Turkish population exchange came out of the Turkish and Greek militaries' treatment of the Christian minorities and Muslim majorities, respectively, in Asia Minor during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) that followed the Allied Powers' authorization of
18480-558: The governments of Greece and Turkey . It involved at least 1.6 million people (1,221,489 Greek Orthodox from Asia Minor , Eastern Thrace , the Pontic Alps and the Caucasus , and 355,000–400,000 Muslims from Greece), most of whom were forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from their homelands. On 16 March 1922, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Yusuf Kemal Tengrişenk stated that "[t]he Ankara Government
18648-630: The immigrants to shift their allegiance to the Communist Party and contributed to its increasing strength. The impoverished slum districts of Thessaloniki where the refugees were concentrated became strongholds of the Greek Communist Party in the Great Depression together with the rural areas of Macedonia where tobacco farming was the main industry. In May 1936, a strike of the tobacco farmers in Macedonia organized by
18816-493: The indigenous Orthodox Christian peoples of Turkey (the Rûm " Roman/Byzantine " millet ), including even Armenian- and Turkish-speaking Orthodox groups, and on the other side most of the native Muslims of Greece, including even Greek-speaking Muslim citizens, such as Vallahades and Cretan Turks , but also Muslim Roma groups, such as Sepečides . Each group comprised native peoples, citizens, and in cases even veterans of
18984-451: The influx of immigrants of the population exchange. As a result, it was quite difficult to settle refugees in Anatolia, since many of these homes had been occupied by people displaced by war before the government could seize them. The more than 1,250,000 refugees who left Turkey for Greece after the war in 1922, through different mechanisms, contributed to the unification of elites under authoritarian regimes in Turkey and Greece. In Turkey,
19152-419: The infusion of these refugees into Turkey would dramatically alter Anatolian society. By 1927, Turkish officials had settled 32,315 individuals from Greece in the province of Bursa alone. According to some sources, the population exchange, albeit messy and dangerous for many, was executed fairly quickly by respected supervisors. If the goal of the exchange was to achieve ethnic-national homogeneity, then this
19320-842: The interior stayed part of the Achaemenid Empire. Two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World , the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus , were located in Anatolia. Following the victories of Alexander in 334 BC and 333 BC , the Achaemenid Empire collapsed and Anatolia became part of the Macedonian Empire . This led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization of
19488-592: The international community, saw the resulting ethnic homogenization of their respective states as positive and stabilizing since it helped strengthen the nation-state natures of these two states. Nevertheless, the deportations brought significant challenges: social, such as forcibly being removed from one's place of living, and more practical such as abandoning a well-developed family business. Countries also faced other practical challenges: for example, even decades after, one could notice certain hastily developed parts of Athens, residential areas that had been quickly erected on
19656-647: The last stages of the war cemented the hatred of the refugees towards the monarchy. Aristeidis Stergiadis , the Greek High Commissioner in Smyrna remarked in August 1922 as the Turkish Army advanced upon the city: "Better that they stay here and be slain by Kemal [Ataturk], because if they go to Athens they will overthrow everything". However, increasing grievances of the refugees caused some of
19824-499: The latter founded by colonists from Megara in the seventh century BCE. These settlements were grouped as Aeolis , Ionia , and Doris , after the specific Greek groups that settled them. Further Greek colonization in Anatolia was led by Miletus and Megara in 750–480 BC. The Greek cities along the Aegean prospered with trade, and saw remarkable scientific and scholarly accomplishments. Thales and Anaximander from Miletus founded
19992-466: The legitimate government of the country on 23 April 1920 , started to formalize the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. The Ankara Government engaged in armed and diplomatic struggle. In 1921–1923, the Armenian, Greek, French, and British armies had been expelled. The military advance and diplomatic success of the Ankara Government resulted in the signing of
20160-414: The lines drawn by the millet system of the Ottoman Empire. In the absence of rigid national definitions, there was no readily available criteria to yield to an official ordering of identities after centuries long coexistence in a non-national order. The Treaty of Sèvres imposed harsh terms upon Turkey and placed most of Anatolia under de facto Allied and Greek control. Sultan Mehmet VI 's acceptance of
20328-624: The main freight line through Thrace). It is also home to Martas and the BOTAŞ Terminal, both of them important for trade activities in the Marmara Region . The town's best known product remains Tekirdağ rakı although it is also known for its cherries, celebrated with a festival every June. The proximity of the Greek and Bulgarian borders means that there are honorary consulates for both countries in Tekirdağ. Ferries from Tekirdağ sail to
20496-443: The memories that ought to have been recorded without delay. Eighty years have passed, and the memories are warring with another, ripe for distortion. But the core of every migrant's statement remains the same. Birth in one place, growing old in another place. And feeling a stranger in the two places". The Turks and other Muslims of Western Thrace were exempted from this transfer as were the Greeks of Constantinople ( Istanbul ) and
20664-461: The nearby Marmara Islands during the summer. The nearest airport is Tekirdağ Çorlu Airport (TEQ) although there are many more flights to Istanbul Airport (IST). Tekirdağ was called Bisanthe or Bysanthe ( Greek : Βισάνθη/Βυσάνθη ), and also Rhaedestus (Ῥαιδεστός) in classical antiquity. The latter name was used until the Byzantine era , and transformed into Rodosçuk after it fell to
20832-528: The number of available acres. When the Commission arrived in Greece, the Greek government had already settled provisionally 72,581 farming families, almost entirely in Macedonia , where the houses abandoned by the exchanged Muslims and the fertility of the land made their establishment practicable and auspicious. In Turkey, the property abandoned by the Greeks was often looted by arriving immigrants before
21000-430: The old religion-based and multi-communal Ottoman monarchy into a Turkish nation state that would be governed as a parliamentary republic under a secular constitution . Women gained the right to vote nationally in 1934. With the Surname Law , the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Kemal the honorific surname "Atatürk" ( Father Turk ). Atatürk's reforms caused discontent in some Kurdish and Zaza tribes leading to
21168-417: The other hand, the Greek populations that left were skilled workers who engaged in transnational trade and business, as per previous capitulations policies of the Ottoman Empire. While current scholarship defines the Greek-Turkish population exchange in terms of religious identity, the population exchange was much more complex than this. Indeed, the population exchange, embodied in the Convention Concerning
21336-453: The population exchange as a way to formalize and make permanent the flight of its native Greek Orthodox peoples while initiating a new exodus of a smaller number (400,000) of Muslims from Greece as a way to provide settlers for the newly depopulated Orthodox villages of Turkey; Greece meanwhile saw it as a way to provide propertyless Greek Orthodox refugees from Turkey with lands of expelled Muslims. Norman M. Naimark claimed that this treaty
21504-420: The population exchange. As a result, the Greek-Turkish population exchange did exchange the Greek Orthodox population of Anatolia, Turkey and the Muslim population of Greece. However, due to the heterogeneous nature of these former Ottoman lands, many other ethnic groups posed social and legal challenges to the terms of the agreement for years after its signing. Among these were the Protestant and Catholic Greeks,
21672-403: The populations, the possessions left behind by the Greek elite of the economic classes in Anatolia was greater than the possessions of the Muslim farmers in Greece. The Refugee Commission had no useful plan to follow to resettle the refugees. Having arrived in Greece for the purpose of settling the refugees on land, the commission had no statistical data either about the number of the refugees or
21840-446: The possibility of provocation coming from outside'. This could be achieved most effectively with an exchange, and 'the best guarantees for the security and development of the minorities remaining' after the exchange 'would be those supplied both by the laws of the country and by the liberal policy of Turkey with regard to all communities whose members have not deviated from their duty as Turkish citizens'. An exchange would also be useful as
22008-409: The principles of political ideologies such as conservatism , nationalism or Islamism . On the left side of the spectrum, parties like the Republican People's Party , Social Democratic Populist Party and Democratic Left Party once enjoyed the largest electoral success. Left-wing parties are more likely to embrace the principles of socialism , Kemalism or secularism . With the founding of
22176-408: The promotion of judges and prosecutors and in their pursuit of public duty. Turkey's constant foreign policy goal is to pursue its national interests. These interests are mainly growing the economy, and maintaining security from internal terrorist and external threats. After the establishment of the Republic, Atatürk and İnönü followed the " peace at home, peace in the world " principle until
22344-453: The province governors ( vali ) and in towns by the governors ( kaymakam ). Other senior public officials are also appointed by the central government, except for the mayors ( belediye başkanı ) who are elected by the constituents. Turkish municipalities have local legislative bodies ( belediye meclisi ) for decision-making on municipal issues. Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces ( il or vilayet ) for administrative purposes. Each province
22512-445: The provinces proportionally to the population . The Parliament and the president serve a five-year terms, with elections on the same day. The president is elected by direct vote and cannot run for re-election after two terms, unless the parliament calls early presidential elections during the second term. The Constitutional Court is composed of 15 members, elected for single 12-year terms. They are obliged to retire when they are over
22680-478: The refugees for jobs sometimes turned violent, and in 1924, the Interior Minister, General Georgios Kondylis , used a force of refugees as strike-breakers. In rural areas, there were demands that the land that once belonged to the Muslims that had been expelled should go to veterans instead of the refugees. Demagogic politicians quite consciously stoked tensions, portraying refugees as a parasitical class who by their very existence were overwhelming public services, as
22848-425: The refugees would be provided with new possessions totaling the ones they had left behind. Greece and Turkey would calculate the total value of a refugee's belongings and the country with a surplus would pay the difference to the other country. All possessions left in Greece belonged to the Greek state and all the possessions left in Turkey belonged to the Turkish state. Because of the difference in nature and numbers of
23016-434: The reigns of Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent , the Ottoman Empire became a global power . From 1789 onwards, the empire saw a major transformation , reforms , and centralization while its territory declined . In the 19th and early 20th centuries, persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction and in the Russian Empire resulted in large-scale loss of life and mass migration into modern-day Turkey from
23184-476: The remaining Armenians by creating an independent state for them ( Wilsonian Armenia ) within the former Ottoman realm. The Turkish Nationalists' reaction to these events led directly to the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and the continuation of the Armenian genocide and Greek genocide . By the time of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's capture of Smyrna in September 1922, over a million Greek orthodox Ottoman subjects had fled their homes in Turkey. A formal peace agreement
23352-436: The remaining Greeks of central Anatolia (both Greek- and Turkish-speaking), Pontus and the Caucasus (Kars region). Thus, of the 1,200,000 only about 189,916 still remained in Turkey by that time. In Greece, the population exchange was considered part of the events called the Asia Minor Catastrophe ( Greek : Μικρασιατική καταστροφή ). Significant refugee displacement and population movements had already occurred following
23520-409: The removal of the Jews from the city, whom they saw as economic competitors. However, the EEE never became a major party, though its members did collaborate with the Germans in World War II, serving in the Security Battalions . The heterogeneous nature of the groups under the nation-state of Greece and Turkey is not reflected in the establishment of criteria formed in the Lausanne negotiations. This
23688-399: The rest Greeks, 70% in Constantinople; and by 1927 to 350,000, mostly in Istanbul. In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25 percent in 1914 to 3–5.5 percent in 1927, to 0.3–0.4% today roughly translating to 200,000–320,000 devotees. This was due to events that had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the First World War ,
23856-400: The royalist side. For their political stance and their "Anatolian customs" (cuisine, music, etc.), the refugees often faced discrimination by part of the local Greek population. The fact that the refugees spoke dialects of Greek that sounded exotic and strange in Greece marked them out, and they were often seen as rivals by the locals for land and jobs. The arrival of so many people in so short
24024-512: The settlements plundered and in ruins . Meanwhile, after the Balkan Wars , Greece had almost doubled its territory, and the population of the state had risen from approximately 3.7 million to 4.8 million. With this newly annexed population, the proportion of non-Greek minority groups in Greece rose to 13%, and following the end of the First World War , it had increased to 20%. Most of the ethnic populations in these annexed territories were Muslim , but were not necessarily Turkish in ethnicity. This
24192-521: The signing of the Armistice of Mudanya , the city was given back to Turkey on 13 November 1922. Under the terms of the 1923 agreement for the Exchange of Greek Orthodox and Muslim Populations between the two countries, the Greek Christians of Tekirdağ were all forced to leave (founding the village of Nea Raidestos ), their place taken by Muslim Turks from Greece. In December 1934, a convoy of 1,583 Turkish speaking Muslims from Dobruja and Ada Kaleh settled in Tekirdağ. For many years Tekirdağ served as
24360-466: The state which expelled them, and none had representation in the state purporting to speak for them in the exchange treaty. Some scholars have criticized the exchange, describing it as a legalized form of mutual ethnic cleansing , while others have defended it, stating that despite its negative aspects, the exchange had an overall positive outcome since it successfully prevented another potential genocide of Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey . By
24528-535: The time), 550,000 Pontic Greeks , 900,000 Anatolian Greeks and 60,000 Cappadocian Greeks . Arrivals in Greece from the exchange numbered 1,310,000 according to the map (in this article) with figures below: 260,000 from Eastern Thrace (100,000 had already left between 1912 and 1914 after the Balkan Wars), 20,000 from the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara , 650,000 from Anatolia, 60,000 from Cappadocia , 280,000 Pontic Greeks, 40,000 left Constantinople (the Greeks there were permitted to stay, but those who had fled during
24696-422: The total number reaching 648,000. Historian Constantine G. Hatzidimitriou writes that "loss of life among Anatolian Greeks during the WWI period and its aftermath was approximately 735,370". The pre-war Greek population may have been closer to 2.4 million. The number of Armenians killed varies from a low of 300,000 to 1.5 million. The estimate for Assyrians is 275–300,000. According to some calculations, during
24864-407: The town's restoration by Justinian I in the 6th century AD. In 813 and again in 1206, after the Battle of Rodosto , it was sacked by the Bulgarians , but it continued to appear as a place of considerable importance in later Byzantine times. The 11th-century Byzantine historian Michael Attaleiates owned property in Raidestos which he described in his will. From 1204 to 1235 the town was ruled by
25032-421: The treaty angered Turkish nationalists , who established a rival government at Ankara and reorganized Turkish forces with the aim of blocking the implementation of the treaty, waging the Turkish War of Independence . By the fall of 1922, the Ankara Government had secured most of Turkey's contemporary borders and replaced the Ottoman Sultanate as the dominant governing entity in Anatolia. Following these events,
25200-407: The unanimous decision by the Greek and Turkish governments that minority protection would not suffice to ameliorate ethnic tensions after the First World War, population exchange was promoted as the only viable option. According to representatives from Ankara , the "amelioration of the lot of the minorities in Turkey' depended 'above all on the exclusion of every kind of foreign intervention and of
25368-414: The voyage and brutal waiting for boats for transportation. The death rate during the immigration was four times higher than the birth rate. In the first years after their arrival, the Turkish immigrants from Greece were inefficient in economic production, having only brought with them agricultural skills in tobacco production. This created considerable economic loss in Anatolia for the new Turkish Republic. On
25536-454: The war were not allowed to return). Additionally, 50,000 Greeks came from the Caucasus , 50,000 from Bulgaria and 12,000 from Crimea , almost 1.42 million from all regions. About 340,000 Greeks remained in Turkey, 220,000 of them in Istanbul in 1924. By 1924, the Christian population of Turkey proper had been reduced from 4.4 million in 1912 to 700,000 (50% of the pre-war Christians had been killed), 350,000 Armenians, 50,000 Assyrians and
25704-403: The west. Turkey is home to over 85 million people; most are ethnic Turks , while ethnic Kurds are the largest ethnic minority . Officially a secular state , Turkey has a Muslim-majority population. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city , while Istanbul is its largest city and economic and financial center. Other major cities include İzmir , Bursa , and Antalya . Turkey
25872-480: The whole of the period between 1914 and 1922 and for the whole of Anatolia, there are academic estimates of death toll ranging from 289,000 to 750,000. The figure of 750,000 is suggested by political scientist Adam Jones . Scholar Rudolph Rummel compiled various figures from several studies to estimate lower and higher bounds for the death toll between 1914 and 1923. He estimates that 384,000 Greeks were exterminated from 1914 to 1918, and 264,000 from 1920 to 1922, with
26040-516: Was a language indigenous to Anatolia, with no known modern-day connections. Hurrian language was used in northern Syria . Hittite, Palaic, and Luwian languages were "the oldest written Indo-European languages ", forming the Anatolian sub-group . Hattian rulers were gradually replaced by Hittite rulers. The Hittite kingdom was a large kingdom in Central Anatolia, with its capital of Hattusa . It co-existed in Anatolia with Palaians and Luwians , approximately between 1700 and 1200 BC. As
26208-424: Was a second significant wave of Turkic migration, as people fled Mongol expansion. Seljuk sultanate was defeated by the Mongols at the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243 and disappeared by the beginning of the 14th century. It was replaced by various Turkish principalities. Based around Söğüt , Ottoman Beylik was founded by Osman I in the early 14th century. According to Ottoman chroniclers, Osman descended from
26376-532: Was achieved by both Turkey and Greece. For example, in 1906, nearly 20 percent of the population of present-day Turkey was non-Muslim, but by 1927, only 2.6 percent was. The architect of the exchange was Fridtjof Nansen , commissioned by the League of Nations . As the first official high commissioner for refugees, Nansen proposed and supervised the exchange, taking into account the interests of Greece, Turkey, and West European powers. As an experienced diplomat with experience resettling Russian and other refugees after
26544-461: Was called the "State of the Turks" ( Dawlat at-Turk , or Dawlat al-Atrāk , or Dawlat-at-Turkiyya ). Turkestan, also meaning the "land of the Turks", was used for a historic region in Central Asia . Middle English usage of Turkye or Turkeye is found in The Book of the Duchess (written in 1369–1372) to refer to Anatolia or the Ottoman Empire . The modern spelling Turkey dates back to at least 1719. The bird called turkey
26712-429: Was closer to Greek than Anatolian languages. Phrygians shared Anatolia with Neo-Hittites and Urartu . Luwian-speakers were probably the majority in various Anatolian Neo-Hittite states. Urartians spoke a non-Indo-European language and their capital was around Lake Van . Urartu and Phrygia fell in seventh century BC. They were replaced by Carians , Lycians and Lydians . These three cultures "can be considered
26880-400: Was criticized by Iraq for violating its sovereignty and killing civilians. Diplomatic relations with Israel were damaged after the Gaza flotilla raid , normalized in 2016, and cut again following the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip . In 2024, Turkey stopped trading with Israel. Turkish Armed Forces is responsible for defense against foreign threats. While the Commander-in-Chief is
27048-417: Was first inhabited by modern humans during the Late Paleolithic . Home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe and some of the earliest farming areas , present-day Turkey was inhabited by various ancient peoples . The Hattians were assimilated by the Anatolian peoples , such as the Hittites . Classical Anatolia transitioned into cultural Hellenization following the conquests of Alexander
27216-412: Was named as such due to trade of guineafowl from Turkey to England. The name Turkey has been used in international treaties referring to the Ottoman Empire. With the Treaty of Alexandropol , the name Türkiye entered international documents for the first time. In the treaty signed with Afghanistan in 1921, the expression Devlet-i Âliyye-i Türkiyye ("Sublime Turkish State") was used, likened to
27384-406: Was not ethno-nationalism , but rather, a "question" that "demanded 'quick and efficient' resolution without a minimum of delay." He believed that economic component of the problem of Greek and Turkish refugees deserved the most attention: "Such an exchange will provide Turkey immediately and in the best conditions with the population necessary to continue the exploitation of the cultivated lands which
27552-469: Was proclaimed on 29 October 1923, modelled on the reforms initiated by the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk . Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II , but was involved in the Korean War . Several military interventions interfered with the transition to a multi-party system. Turkey is an upper-middle-income and emerging country ; its economy is the world's 17th-largest by nominal and 12th-largest by PPP-adjusted GDP . It
27720-412: Was signed with Greece after months of negotiations in Lausanne on July 24, 1923. Two weeks after the treaty, the Allied Powers turned over Istanbul to the Nationalists, marking the final departure of occupation armies from Anatolia and provoking another flight of Christian minorities to Greece. On October 29, 1923, the Grand Turkish National Assembly announced the creation of the Republic of Turkey ,
27888-404: Was significantly altered as well. Greek- and Turkish-speaking Muslim inhabitants of Crete ( Cretan Turks ) moved, principally to the Anatolian coast, but also to Syria, Lebanon and Egypt . Conversely, Greeks from Asia Minor, principally Smyrna, arrived in Crete bringing in their distinctive dialects, customs and cuisine. According to Bruce Clark , leaders of Greece and Turkey, and some circles in
28056-450: Was strongly in favour of a solution that would satisfy world opinion and ensure tranquillity in its own country", and that "[i]t was ready to accept the idea of an exchange of populations between the Greeks in Asia Minor and the Muslims in Greece". Eventually, the initial request for an exchange of population came from Eleftherios Venizelos in a letter he submitted to the League of Nations on 16 October 1922, following Greece's defeat in
28224-399: Was the last part of an ethnic cleansing campaign to create an ethnically pure homeland for the Turks. Historian Dinah Shelton similarly wrote that "the Lausanne Treaty completed the forcible transfer of the country's Greeks." This major compulsory population exchange , or agreed mutual expulsion, was based not on language or ethnicity, but upon religious identity, and involved nearly all
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