1.
Provinces of Turkey
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Turkey is divided into 81 provinces. Each province is divided into a number of different districts, the provincial government is seated in the central district. The central area usually bears the name of the province, there are only two exceptions to this naming scheme, Antakya of Hatay province İzmit of Kocaeli province A province is administered by an appointed governor from the ministry of interior. Below is a list of the 81 provinces of Turkey, sorted according to their license plate code, after Zonguldak the ordering is not alphabetical but in the order of the creation of provinces, as these provinces were created more recently and thus their plate numbers were assigned thereafter. The numbers of the ISO code, the first two digits of the registration plates of Turkey and the first digits of the postal codes in Turkey are the same
2.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
3.
NUTS statistical regions of Turkey
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As a candidate country of the European Union, Turkey is included in the Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics. Interactive map of statistics indicators by NUTS levels
4.
Electoral system of Turkey
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The Electoral system of Turkey varies for general, presidential and local elections that take place in Turkey every four years, five years and five years respectively. Turkey has been a multi-party democracy since 1950, with the first democratic election held on 14 May 1950 leading to the end of the single-party rule established in 1923. The current electoral system for electing Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly has a 10% election threshold, the highest of any country. Presidential elections, A Two-round system, with the top two contesting a run-off election two weeks after the initial election should no candidate win at least 50%+1 of the popular vote. Turkey elects 550 Members of Parliament to the Grand National Assembly using the DHondt method, E. g. in the 2002 general election the AKP won 34. 28% of the vote but won nearly two-thirds of the seats. This was the case in the 2007 and 2011 general election, where the Kurdish Democratic Society Party, the main criticism of the current system is the high 10% threshold necessary to gain seats. Under these proposals, the threshold would fall from 10% to either 7 or 8% while Turkey would be split into 129 electoral districts rather than the existing 85, İstanbul itself would have been split into 17 or 20 districts. The two main opposition parties CHP and MHP do not have a number of electoral strongholds. The AKPs proposals for reform have raised concerns about gerrymandering, Turkey is split into 85 electoral districts, which elect a certain number of Members to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Grand National Assembly has a total of 550 seats, which each district allocated a certain number of MPs in proportion to their population. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey conducts population reviews of each district before the election, in all but three cases, electoral districts share the same name and borders of the 81 Provinces of Turkey. The exceptions are İzmir, İstanbul and Ankara, Provinces electing between 19 and 36 MPs are split into two electoral districts, while any province electing above 36 MPs are divided into three. As the countrys three largest provinces, İzmir and Ankara are divided into two subdistricts while İstanbul is divided into three, the distribution of elected MPs per electoral district is shown below. A total of eight districts had their number of MPs adjusted since the 2011 general election by the electoral council. The two electoral districts of Ankara also had their boundaries changed, the number of voters in each province was announced on 17 May 2015. In total, there are 53,741,838 voters in the provinces, however, because of the electoral system, this was not distributed equally to the provinces. In İzmir, where voters per MP was the highest,118,669 votes corresponded to an MP, two factors caused this more than fourfold disparity. Namely, the electoral law favours provinces smaller in size, which caused İzmir, İstanbul and Ankara, Turkeys largest cities and provinces, to have the least representation per voter
5.
Vehicle registration plate
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A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
6.
Turkish language
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Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
7.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
8.
Aegean Sea
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The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the Greek and Anatolian peninsulas, i. e. between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles, the Aegean Islands are within the sea and some bound it on its southern periphery, including Crete and Rhodes. The sea was known as Archipelago, but in English this words meaning has changed to refer to the Aegean Islands and, generally. In ancient times, there were various explanations for the name Aegean, a possible etymology is a derivation from the Greek word αἶγες – aiges = waves, hence wavy sea, cf. also αἰγιαλός, hence meaning sea-shore. The Venetians, who ruled many Greek islands in the High and Late Middle Ages, popularized the name Archipelago, in some South Slavic languages the Aegean is often called White Sea. The Aegean Sea covers about 214,000 square kilometres in area, the seas maximum depth is 3,543 metres, east of Crete. The Aegean Islands are found within its waters, with the following islands delimiting the sea on the south, Kythera, Antikythera, Crete, Kasos, Karpathos, many of the Aegean Islands, or chains of islands, are actually extensions of the mountains on the mainland. One chain extends across the sea to Chios, another extends across Euboea to Samos, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Aegean Sea as follows, On the South. In the Dardanelles. A line joining Kum Kale and Cape Helles, the dense Mediterranean water sinks below the Black Sea inflow to a depth of 23–30 metres, then flows through the Dardanelles Strait and into the Sea of Marmara at velocities of 5–15 cm/s. The Black Sea outflow moves westward along the northern Aegean Sea, Aegean Sea Intermediate Water – Aegean Sea Intermediate Water extends from 40–50 m to 200–300 metres with temperatures ranging from 11–18 °C. Aegean Sea Bottom Water – occurring at depths below 500–1000 m with a uniform temperature. The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC, before that time, at the peak of the last ice age sea levels everywhere were 130 metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared c.7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3,000 years after that, the subsequent Bronze Age civilizations of Greece and the Aegean Sea have given rise to the general term Aegean civilization. In ancient times, the sea was the birthplace of two ancient civilizations – the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenean Civilization of the Peloponnese, later arose the city-states of Athens and Sparta among many others that constituted the Athenian Empire and Hellenic Civilization. Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean like frogs around a pond, the Aegean Sea was later invaded by the Persians and the Romans, and inhabited by the Byzantine Empire, the Bulgarians, the Venetians, the Genoese, the Seljuq Turks, and the Ottoman Empire. The Aegean was the site of the democracies, and its seaways were the means of contact among several diverse civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean. Many of the islands in the Aegean have safe harbours and bays, in ancient times, navigation through the sea was easier than travelling across the rough terrain of the Greek mainland
9.
Isparta Province
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Isparta Province is a province in southwestern Turkey. Its adjacent provinces are Afyon to the northwest, Burdur to the southwest, Antalya to the south and it has an area of 8,993 km² and a population of 448,298 up from 434,771. The province is known for its apples, sour cherries, grapes, roses and rose products. The best fertile lands are in the area named Uluborlu, the province is situated in the Göller Bölgesi of Turkeys Mediterranean Region and has many freshwater lakes
10.
Manisa Province
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Manisa Province is a province in western Turkey. Its neighboring provinces are İzmir to the west, Aydın to the south, Denizli to the south east, Uşak to the east, Kütahya to the north east, the seat of the province is the city of Manisa. Its provincial capital is the city of Manisa, the code is 45. The Mount Sipylus national park near the city of Manisa covers a richly forested area, hot springs, and the famous crying rock of Niobe, the park boasts of having within its boundaries about 120 varieties of native plants, especially wild tulips. The park provides opportunities for mountaineering and camping, sardis, in Salihli, was the ancient capital of Lydia, once ruled by King Croesus, who was renowned for his wealth. Due to numerous earthquakes, most of the remains date back only to Roman times. There are the remains of the temple of Artemis and a restored gymnasium, the splendid synagogue from the 3rd century is worth visiting, with its elaborate mosaics and artfully carved colored-stone panels. Akhisar, the ancient city of Thyatira, was one of the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, more recently, it became an important commercial center in the province and is its second largest after Manisa. The city of Alaşehir is where the remains of the ancient city of Philadelphia, there is little left of the ancient city, except some ruins of a Byzantine church. Kula houses provide beautiful examples of Ottoman architecture, the villages of the Mount Yunt, the towns of Gördes, Kula and Demirci are famous for their precious carpets and kilims. In addition there are thermal springs throughout the area. The province is highly developed in terms of activities which are concentrated especially in the largest four centers of Manisa, Turgutlu, Akhisar
11.
Denizli
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Denizli is located in the countrys Aegean Region. The city has a population of about 577,000, Denizli is the capital city of Denizli Province. Denizli has seen development in the last few decades, mostly due to textile production. Denizli also attracts visitors to the nearby mineral-coated hillside hot spring of Pamukkale, recently, Denizli becomes a major domestic tourism destination due to the various types of thermal waters in Sarayköy, Central/Denizli, Akköy, Buldan, Çardak districts. The ancient ruined city of Hierapolis, as well as ruins of the city of Laodicea on the Lycus, also in the depending of Honaz, about 10 mi west of Denizli is, what was, in the 1st century AD, the city of Colossae. The weather is hot in Denizli in summers, whereas in winters, some years, snow can be observed in the urban areas. Springs and autumns are rainy, mild climate, warm, the area has been occupied since prehistoric times, there were important ancient Greek and Roman towns nearby, which persisted through the Byzantine period. The city was founded in its current location after the area has settled by the Turks. The inhabitants of Laodicea were resettled here in the Seljuk period, in the 17th century, the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi visited Denizli and recorded the town as follows, The city is called by Turks as as there are several rivers and lakes around it. In fact it is a trip from the sea. Its fortress is of square shape built on flat ground and its periphery is 470 steps long. These are, painters gate in North, saddle-makers gate in the East, new Mosque gate in the South, there are some fifty armed watchmen in the fortress, and they attend the shop. The main city is outside the fortress with 44 districts and 3600 houses, there are 57 small and large mosques and district masjids,7 madrasahs,7 childrens schools,6 baths and 17 dervish lodges. As everybody lives in vineyards the upper classes and ordinary people do not flee from each other, the city lived in peace for centuries without being involved in wars in a direct manner. Following World War I during the Independence War, the Greek forces managed to come as close as Sarayköy, a small town 20 km northwest of Denizli, the most widespread symbols of Denizli province are of textile industry. The inland areas, like Çardak, Bozkurt, Çivril, and Çal districts/counties of the province are cooler and have a higher elevation than the seaside, therefore, there are climatic differences within the province and even in the Denizli urbanized area. The land is open to coming from the Aegean Sea because the mountains are perpendicular to the sea. Winters are rainy or sometimes snowy, but generally mild, aside from its visitors attractions, the city of Denizli is known for its textile industry, outlet shopping for clothing, and for connected fields of activity such as the dye industry
12.
Baklan
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Baklan is a town and a district of Denizli Province, in Turkeys Aegean Region. The town is at a distance of about an hour from the city of Denizli, neighboring the town of Çivril, for the pre-Turkish period, it is deduced that the plain of Baklan corresponded to the settlements named Lounda and Lakèrion. However, it is inferred that the nomad Turks had already esteblished themselves in Lounda, the subsequent Turkish town was alternatively called Dedeköy, a name which was its official appellation in some periods in the past. The name dede makes reference to the 13th century Seljuk warrior Alp Eren Hüsamettin Gazi Bey, a township depending Çal district until 1990, it was made into a district at that time. The economy is based on agriculture
13.
Bekilli
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Bekilli is a town and a district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean region of Turkey. The town of Bekilli is located midway between the seats of Denizli and Uşak, at a distance of 82 km from the first and 86 km from the second. They are Bükrüce, Çamköy, Çoğaşlı, Deşdemir, Gömce, İkizbaba, Köselli, Poyrazlı, Sırıklı, Üçkuyu, the town is renowned for its vineyards and celebrates an annual wine festival. Viticulture is a constituent of local culture. Nevertheless, there are interesting and yet largely unexplored traces dating from Phrygian, Lydian, Roman and early Christian, the local radio station Bekilli Municipality Prefecture of Bekilli
14.
Bozkurt, Denizli
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Bozkurt is a town and a rural district of Denizli Province in the Aegean Region of Turkey. The town is situated on a plain 52 km east of the city of Denizli, the altitude of the town is 866.8 m, and the district area is around 400 km2. The population is 11,738 of which 4,589 live in the town of Bozkurt itself. Immigration from Bulgaria continued until recent times and this is an agricultural district, with irrigation systems currently being constructed. A notable sight of interest is Karagöl, literally the black lake, the lakes are much visited due to the natural beauty of the scenery and for their fish
15.
Buldan
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Buldan is a town and a district of Denizli Province in the inner Aegean Region of Turkey. The town of Buldan is located at a distance of 46 km from the seat of Denizli. The population of Buldan is 15,086 and it extends along a pretty hilltop area, with hillsides covered with pomegranates, figs, vines and blackberries. There are lovely views from the high meadows, kestane Deresi is a favourite popular excursion spot situated in the upper parts of the main town. Buldans depending township of Yenicekent is also the site of ancient Tripolis of Phrygia, historically, the town has been a very important center of Turkeys textile industry, a tradition it actively pursues to this day, still largely based on independent craftspersons. Buldan was famed for a thin handwoven cheesecloth-type fabric, with laced edges and used chiefly for bed covers and table cloths, called as Buldan bezi under the name of locality. Already back in the 19th century, the townspeople wove 40,000 pieces of all-cotton colored striped cloth used called alaca used for attires, Buldan weavers also produced over one-half million handkerchiefs and a large number of cotton curtains. Another textile from Buldan that deserves mention is a violet silk woven as a rectangular panel to be wrapped around the body. Yet another is kaplama, colorful head coverings typical of Turkeys Aegean Region and worn by men and women alike with different colors associated with each gender and various regions. Thanks to sizable production effort, the number of looms in Buldan had risen to 1,500 by the end of the 19th century, Tripolis itself, a first-century AD Roman foundation, may have had the weaving industry as its reason for coming into existence
16.
Mount Honaz
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Mount Honaz, is a mountain and a national park, located in southwestern Turkey,17 km east of the province seat of Denizli. On April 21,1995, it was proclaimed as a protected area, Honaz, Denizlis depending township that carries the same name as the mountain, is situated on the mountain slopes. At 2,571 m, it is the highest mountain in Turkeys Aegean Region, the mountain is covered with forests, which are particularly dense in its northern side. Ice and snow are omnipresent around its summit, there has been a project for establishing a ski resort on the mountain a few years ago when the provinces marking governor, the late Recep Yazıcıoğlu was in office. However, these plans lie idle for the moment despite the conditions the mountain offers for winter sports. Miscellaneous images of Mount Honaz National Park
17.
Sodium sulfate
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Sodium sulfate, also known as sulfate of soda, is the inorganic compound with formula Na2SO4 as well as several related hydrates. All forms are solids that are highly soluble in water. With an annual production of 6 million tonnes, the decahydrate is a commodity chemical product. It is mainly used for the manufacture of detergents and in the process of paper pulping. Decahydrate, known as the mineral mirabilite, widely used by chemical industry and it is also known as Glaubers salt. Anhydrous, known as the mineral thenardite, used as a drying agent in organic synthesis. The decahydrate of sodium sulfate is known as Glaubers salt after the Dutch/German chemist and apothecary Johann Rudolf Glauber and he named it sal mirabilis, because of its medicinal properties, the crystals were used as a general purpose laxative, until more sophisticated alternatives came about in the 1900s. In the 18th century, Glaubers salt began to be used as a raw material for the production of soda ash. Demand for soda ash increased and the supply of sodium sulfate had to increase in line, therefore, in the nineteenth century, the large scale Leblanc process, producing synthetic sodium sulfate as a key intermediate, became the principal method of soda ash production. Sodium sulfate is stable, being unreactive toward most oxidizing or reducing agents at normal temperatures. At high temperatures, it can be converted to sodium sulfide by reduction, Na2SO4 +2 C → Na2S +2 CO2 Sodium sulfate is a neutral salt. The neutrality of such solutions reflects the fact that sulfate is derived, formally, furthermore, the Na+ ion, with only a single positive charge, only weakly polarizes its water ligands provided there are metal ions in solution. Sodium sulfate reacts with acid to give the acid salt sodium bisulfate, Na2SO4 + H2SO4 ⇌2 NaHSO4 The equilibrium constant for this process depends on concentration. Sodium sulfate has unusual solubility characteristics in water and its solubility in water rises more than tenfold between 0 °C to 32.384 °C, where it reaches a maximum of 49.7 g/100 mL. At this point the solubility curve changes slope, and the solubility becomes almost independent of temperature and this temperature at 32.384 °C, corresponding to the release of crystal water and melting of the hydrated salt, serves as an accurate temperature reference for thermometer calibration. Sodium sulfate is a typical electrostatically bonded ionic sulfate, containing Na+ ions, the only alums formed with common trivalent metals are NaAl2 and NaCr2, in contrast to potassium sulfate and ammonium sulfate which form many stable alums. Double salts with other alkali metal sulfates are known, including Na2SO4·3K2SO4 which occurs naturally as the mineral glaserite. Formation of glaserite by reaction of sodium sulfate with potassium chloride has been used as the basis of a method for producing potassium sulfate, other double salts include 3Na2SO4·CaSO4, 3Na2SO4·MgSO4 and NaF·Na2SO4
18.
Geothermal gradient
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Geothermal gradient is the rate of increasing temperature with respect to increasing depth in the Earths interior. Away from tectonic plate boundaries, it is about 25 °C per km of depth near the surface in most of the world, strictly speaking, geo-thermal necessarily refers to the Earth but the concept may be applied to other planets. A line tracing the gradient through the body is called a geotherm on Earth. On the Moon it is called a selenotherm, the Earths internal heat comes from a combination of residual heat from planetary accretion, heat produced through radioactive decay, and possibly heat from other sources. The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, at the center of the planet, the temperature may be up to 7,000 K and the pressure could reach 360 GPa. Temperature within the Earth increases with depth, the heat content of the Earth is 1031 joules. Much of the heat is created by decay of radioactive elements. An estimated 45 to 90 percent of the heat escaping from the Earth originates from decay of elements mainly located in the mantle. Heat of impact and compression released during the formation of the Earth by accretion of in-falling meteorites. Heat released as abundant heavy metals descended to the Earths core, latent heat released as the liquid outer core crystallizes at the inner core boundary. Heat may be generated by tidal force on the Earth as it rotates, since rock cannot flow as readily as water it compresses and distorts, in Earths continental crust, the decay of natural radioactive isotopes has had significant involvement in the origin of geothermal heat. The continental crust is abundant in lower density minerals but also contains significant concentrations of heavier lithophilic minerals such as uranium, because of this, it holds the largest global reservoir of radioactive elements found in the Earth. Especially in layers closer to Earths surface, naturally occurring isotopes are enriched in the granite and these high levels of radioactive elements are largely excluded from the Earths mantle due to their inability to substitute in mantle minerals and consequent enrichment in partial melts. The mantle is made up of high density minerals with high contents of atoms that have relatively small atomic radii such as magnesium, titanium. Heat flows constantly from its sources within the Earth to the surface, total heat loss from the Earth is estimated at 44.2 TW. Mean heat flow is 65 mW/m2 over continental crust and 101 mW/m2 over oceanic crust and this is 0.087 watt/square meter on average, but is much more concentrated in areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes. The Earths crust effectively acts as an insulating blanket which must be pierced by fluid conduits in order to release the heat underneath. More of the heat in the Earth is lost through plate tectonics, the final major mode of heat loss is by conduction through the lithosphere, the majority of which occurs in the oceans due to the crust there being much thinner and younger than under the continents
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Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
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Hittites
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The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
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Phrygians
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From tribal and village beginnings, the state of Phrygia arose in the eighth century BC with its capital at Gordium. During this period, the Phrygians extended eastward and encroached upon the kingdom of Urartu, the descendants of the Hurrians, the last mention of the Phrygian language in literature dates to the fifth century CE and it was likely extinct by the seventh century. The Phrygians spoke Phrygian, an Indo-European language, some contemporary historians, among which Strabo is the most known, consider the Phrygians a Thracian tribe, part of a wider Thraco-Phrygian group. A conventional date of c.1180 BC is often used for the influx of the pre-Phrygian Bryges or Mushki, following this date, Phrygia retained a separate cultural identity. Phrygia developed an advanced Bronze Age culture, Phrygian Midas, the king of the golden touch, was tutored in music by Orpheus himself, according to the myth. Another musical invention that came from Phrygia was the aulos, an instrument with two pipes. Marsyas, the satyr who first formed the instrument using the hollowed antler of a stag, was a Phrygian follower of Cybele. He unwisely competed in music with the Olympian Apollo and inevitably lost, whereupon Apollo flayed Marsyas alive and provocatively hung his skin on Cybeles own sacred tree, a pine. It was the Great Mother, Cybele, as the Greeks and Romans knew her, who was worshipped in the mountains of Phrygia. In her typical Phrygian form, she wears a belted dress, a polos. It shows her humanized though still enthroned, her hand resting on an attendant lion and the holding the tympanon. The Phrygians also venerated Sabazios, the sky and father-god depicted on horseback, although the Greeks associated Sabazios with Zeus, representations of him, even at Roman times, show him as a horseman god. The name of the earliest known mythical king was Nannacus, the next king mentioned in extant classical sources was called Manis or Masdes. According to Plutarch, because of his exploits, great things were called manic in Phrygia. Thereafter the kingdom of Phrygia seems to have become fragmented among various kings, one of the kings was Tantalus who ruled over the north western region of Phrygia around Mount Sipylus. Tantalus was endlessly punished in Tartarus, because he killed his son Pelops and sacrificially offered him to the Olympians. Tantalus was also accused of stealing from the lotteries he had invented. In the mythic age before the Trojan war, during a time of an interregnum, Gordius, the kingless Phrygians had turned for guidance to the oracle of Sabazios at Telmissus, in the part of Phrygia that later became part of Galatia
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Lydians
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The Lydians were an Anatolian people living in Lydia, a region in western Anatolia, who spoke the distinctive Lydian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian group. Questions raised regarding their origins, as defined by the language and reaching well into the 2nd millennium BC, continue to be debated by language historians, the Lydian capital was at Sfard or Sardis. Lydian power came to an end with the fall of their capital in events subsequent to the Battle of Halys in 585 BC. Material in the way of historical accounts of themselves found to date is scarce, herodotus states that the Lydians were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency. While this specifically refers to coinage in electrum, some think that coinage per se arose in Lydia. This was the practice for girls not born into nobility. Nevertheless, a breakthrough for the understanding of the Lydian language has not occurred yet. Presently available texts begin around the century and extend until the 2nd century BC, which leads one scholar to conclude, Lydians wrote early. Several expressions on Lydians were in use in ancient Greek and in Latin languages. There are also works of visual arts depicting Lydians and/or using as theme subject matters of Lydian history. Lydia Lydia Lydian Treasure Luvian language
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Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
Media related to Denizli Province at Wikimedia Commons
