Turkey is situated in Western Asia and the Balkans, bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Georgia, bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Syria. The geographic coordinates of the country lie at: 39°00′N 35°00′E The area of Turkey is 783,562 km2, it has an Exclusive Economic Zone of 261,654 km2. Turkey extends more than 1,600 km from west to east but less than 800 km from north to south; the total area consists of about 756,816 km2 in Western Asia and about 23,764 km2 in Southeastern Europe. Anatolia is a large rectangular peninsula, situated in western half of Asiatic Turkey, while Armenian Highland occupies its eastern part and includes mount Ararat, the highest peak of Turkey; the Asiatic part of Turkey accounts for 95% of the country's area. Anatolia is known as Asia Minor or the Anatolian Plateau; the term Anatolia is most used in specific reference to the large, semiarid central plateau, rimmed by hills and mountains that in many places limit access to the fertile, densely settled coastal regions.

In Turkey, the term "Anatolia" refers to the entire Asian part of the country. The European portion of Turkey, known as Thrace, encompasses 3% of the total area but is home to more than 10% of the total population. Istanbul, the largest city of Thrace and Turkey, has a population of 11,372,613. Thrace is separated from Anatolia by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the Dardanelles. Mount Ararat, Turkey's tallest mountain with an elevation of 5,137 m, is the legendary landing place of Noah's Ark and is located in the far eastern portion of the country. Land boundaries: 2,627 km border countries: Greece 206 km, Bulgaria 240 km, Georgia 252 km, Armenia 268 km, Nakhchivan 9 km, Iran 499 km, Iraq 331 km, Syria 822 km. Coastline: 7,200 km Maritime claims: Exclusive Economic Zone: 261,654 km2. In the Black Sea only: to the maritime boundary agreed upon with the former USSR territorial sea: 6 nmi in the Aegean Sea, its demarcated land frontiers were settled by treaty early in the twentieth century and have since remained stable.

The boundary with Greece was confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne, which resolved persistent boundary and territorial claims involving areas in Thrace and provided for a population exchange. Under the agreement, most members of the sizable Greek-speaking community of western Turkey were forced to resettle in Greece, while the majority of the Turkish-speaking residents of Thrace who were not forced out during the Balkan wars were removed to Turkey; the boundary with Bulgaria was confirmed by the Treaty of Lausanne. Since 1991 the more than 500 km boundary with the former Soviet Union, defined in the 1921 Treaty of Moscow and Treaty of Kars, has formed Turkey's borders with the independent countries of Armenia and Georgia; the boundary with Iran was confirmed by the Treaty of Kasr-ı Şirin in 1639. The boundary with Iraq was confirmed by the Treaty of Angora in 1926. Turkey's two southern neighbors and Syria, had been part of the Ottoman Empire up to 1918. According to the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey ceded all its claims to these two countries, organized as League of Nations mandates under the governing responsibility of Britain and France, respectively.

Turkey and Britain agreed the boundary in the Treaty of Angora. Turkey's boundary with Syria has not been accepted by Syria; as a result of the Treaty of Lausanne, the former Ottoman Sanjak of Alexandretta was ceded to the French which administered it on behalf of the League of Nations. However, in June 1939 the people of Hatay had formed a new independent State and after, the parliament voted to unite with Turkey. Since achieving independence in 1946, Syria has harbored a lingering resentment and this issue has continued to be an irritant in Syrian-Turkish relations; the 1st Geography Congress, held in Ankara City between 6–21 June 1941, divided Turkey into seven regions after long discussions and work. These geographical regions were separated according to their climate, location and fauna, human habitat, agricultural diversities, topography, etc. At the end, 4 coastal regions and 3 inner regions were named according to their proximity to the four seas surrounding Turkey, their positions in Anatolia.

Distinct contrasts between the interior and the coastal areas of Turkey are manifested in landform regions, climate and vegetation. The coastal areas are divided into the Black Sea region, the Marmara region, the Aegean region, the Mediterranean region; the interior areas are divided into three regions: Central Anatolia, Eastern Anatolia and Southeastern Anatolia. The Black Sea region has a steep, rocky coast with rivers that cascade through the gorges of the coastal ranges. A few larger rivers

The Shawnee Lookout Archeological District is a historic district in the southwestern corner of the U. S. state of Ohio. Located southwest of Cleves in Hamilton County's Miami Township, the district is composed of forty-six archaeological sites spread out over an area of 2,000 acres. Thirty-four of these sites are located in the 1,000-acre Shawnee Lookout Park, called one of the most beautiful parks in southwestern Ohio; the combination of river bottoms and wooded hillsides in Shawnee Lookout made it a attractive site for prehistoric settlement. As a result, the lands included in the district have a long record of aboriginal residency: artifacts found in the district's sites span a range of ten thousand years; these artifacts represent many cultures, including various Archaic peoples, the Hopewell tradition, other Woodland period peoples. Among the artifacts found at one of the sites are a wide range of biological remains, such as bird bones, fish bones, turtle shells, deer bones. In recognition of the archaeological value of the sites composing the district, Shawnee Lookout was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974

The mācēhualtin were the commoner social class in the Mexica Empire referred to as the Aztec Empire. The Aztec social class of the mācēhualtin were rural farmers, forming the majority of the commoners in the Mexica Empire; the mācēhualtin worked lands that belonged to the social unit of the calpolli called chinampas, with each family maintaining rights to the land so long as it did not lie fallow for more than two years. Within these lands, the rural mācēhualtin constructed small dams and terraces to increase their agricultural yield. Crops common to Mexican agriculture were grown on these plots, including maize and squash; these projects were organized by the local communities and were not state led. From their produce and productivity, the mācēhualtin were required to pay tribute to the Aztec nobility. During the reign of Moctezuma II, they were banned from serving in the royal palaces, as this monarch widened the divide between pipiltin and macehualtin. However, before his reign it was noted that there was some mobility, though uncommon, within the social classes.

Those who moved up and became pipiltin were called yaotequihua. Those who were brought down ranks in spite of birth status as pipiltin were called pillaquistiltin. Macehualtin could become or sell their children into slavery; this possibility for social mobility was uncommon due to the locative view of the world held by the Aztecs. This point of view emphasized the idea that everyone and everything had a correct place in the world, it was a moral imperative to find one's place and conform to its requirements. This logic extended to social class, with the pipiltin being viewed as having trained to rule the rest of society made by the Aztec gods for this purpose, the macehualtin being viewed as having been made to work for the benefit of society. Rituals and many other aspects of Aztec society helped to reinforce this worldview. Inequality among the social classes was further reinforced by societal institutions such as a differential set of laws for the commoners and those of the upper class; this differential set of laws was harsher towards the nobility than towards the commoners for a comparable offense.

As Aztec society was in part centered on warfare, every Aztec male received some sort of basic military training from an early age. By the time the child reached three years of age, the boy would begin to take simple instruction at the hands of his father on the tasks expected of men, no matter what social class they fell into; the only slim possibility of possible upwards social mobility for mācēhualtin was through military achievement. The taking of captives marked an important transition into status as a full warrior, was the way for soldiers to move up the social ladder, it continued to be a source of honor throughout a man's tenure as a warrior. Failure to take captives or perform well in battle in life would be a source of dishonor for the warriors. While this would negatively impact warriors who were mācēhualtin, it would be a worse social blow for members of the nobility, although not as materially damaging; the mācēhualtin children attended the telpochcalli or "House of Youths" beginning at fifteen years of age.

This was a school for both boys and girls. In the telpochcalli, the young men learned other aspects of Aztec warfare, they spent a great deal of time engaged in physical labor around the school and around the community in order to build the young men's strength. Some activities such as hauling firewood took the form of a test of physical prowess as larger and larger loads of firewood were given to the young men. While the young men prepared to become warriors for the Aztec Empire, the young Aztec women attended the cuicalco or "House of Song", a subdivision of the telpochcalli. Here they learned ritual arts like song. Divisions based on gender prominently affected children among the mācēhualtin. An emphasis on gender divisions began at birth, not just with schooling; some early rituals differed between newborn girls. For the male children, symbolic actions like giving the umbilical cord to warriors to bury in fields where battles might take place emphasized their role as future warriors. For the female children, symbolic actions like burying the umbilical cord near the hearth emphasized the female role in the home.

After the Spanish conquest, the Nahuatl word mācēhualli was adopted in colonial Spanish as macehual, was used all over New Spain as a synonym for "commoner," "subject," and "native." Pipiltin, the nobility of the Aztec Empire Carrasco, David. Daily life of the Aztecs. Santa Barbara: Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-37744-0. Clendinnen, Inga. Aztecs: an interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr. ISBN 0-521-40093-7. Coe, Michael D.. Mexico: From the Olmecs to the Aztecs. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson Inc. pp. 203–204, 206. ISBN 978-0-500-29076-7. Fargher, Lane F.. "Egalitarian Ideology and Political Power in PreHispanic Central Mexico: The Case Of Tlaxcallan". Latin American Antiquity. 21: 227–251. JSTOR 25766992. Hassig, Ross. Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control. Civilization of the American Indian series, no. 188. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2121-1. OCLC 17106411. Hassig, Ross. War and Society in Ancient Mesoamerica. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07