1.
Osman I
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Osman Gazi, sometimes transliterated archaically as Othman, was the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. He and the dynasty bearing his name later established and ruled the nascent Ottoman Empire, the state, while only a small principality during Osmans lifetime, transformed into a world empire in the centuries after his death. It existed until the abolition of the sultanate in 1922, or alternatively the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 or the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, due to the scarcity of historical sources dating from his lifetime, very little factual information is known about him. Not a single written source survives from Osmans reign, the Ottomans did not record the history of Osmans life until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after his death. Because of this, it is challenging for historians to differentiate between fact and myth in the many stories told about him. One historian has gone so far as to declare it impossible. According to later Ottoman tradition, Osmans ancestors were descendants of the Kayı tribe of Oğuz Turks, the Ottoman principality was just one of many Anatolian beyliks that emerged in the second half of the thirteenth century. Situated in the region of Bithynia, Osmans principality was particularly well-placed to launch attacks on the vulnerable Byzantine Empire, some scholars have argued that Osmans original name was Turkish, probably Atman or Ataman, and was only later changed to the Arabic ʿOsmān. An early Arabic source mentioning him also writes ط rather than ث in one instance, Osman may thus have adopted the more prestigious Muslim name later in his life. He was most likely born around the middle of the century, possibly in 1254/5. According to Ottoman tradition, Osmans father Ertuğrul led the Turkic Kayı tribe west from Central Asia into Anatolia and he then pledged allegiance to the Sultan of the Anatolian Seljuks, who granted him dominion over the town of Söğüt on the Byzantine frontier. This connection between Ertuğrul and the Seljuks, however, was invented by court chroniclers a century later. Osman became chief, or Bey, upon his father’s death, nothing is known for certain about Osmans early activities, except that he controlled the region around the town of Söğüt and from there launched raids against the neighboring Byzantine Empire. The first datable event in Osmans life is the Battle of Bapheus in 1301 or 1302, Osman appears to have followed the strategy of increasing his territories at the expense of the Byzantines while avoiding conflict with his more powerful Turkish neighbors. These early victories and exploits are favorite subjects of Ottoman writers and these legends have been romanticized by the poetical pens which recorded them in later years. The Ottoman writers attached great importance to this legendary, dreamlike conception of the founder of their empire, Osman I had a close relationship with a local religious leader of dervishes named Sheikh Edebali, whose daughter he married. A story emerged among later Ottoman writers to explain the relationship between the two men, in which Osman had a dream while staying in the Sheikhs house. The story appears in the late fifteenth-century chronicle of Aşıkpaşazade as follows, He saw that a moon arose from the holy mans breast, a tree then sprouted from his navel and its shade compassed the world
2.
Grand Mosque of Bursa
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Bursa Grand Mosque or Ulu Cami is a mosque in Bursa, Turkey. Built in the Seljuk style, it was ordered by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, the mosque has 20 domes and 2 minarets. Ulu Cami is the largest mosque in Bursa and a landmark of early Ottoman architecture which used elements from the Seljuk architecture. Ordered by Sultan Bayezid I, the mosque was designed and built by architect Ali Neccar in 1396–1399 and it is a large rectangular building, with twenty domes arranged in four rows of five that are supported by twelve columns. Supposedly the twenty domes were built instead of the twenty separate mosques which Sultan Bayezid I had promised for winning the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, the horizontally spacious and dimly lit interior is designed to feel peaceful and contemplative. The subdivisions of space formed by multiple domes and pillars create a sense of privacy, inside the mosque there are 192 monumental wall inscriptions written by the famous Ottoman calligraphers of that period. The mosque has one of the greatest examples of Islamic calligraphy in the world, the Calligraphy is written on the walls, columns and on small and large plates. The mosque is located in the old city center of Bursa on the Atatürk Blvd, great Mosque of Bursa at ArchNet. org BursaUluCamii. com Official Website Images of Bursa Grand Mosque Images of Bursa Ulu Mosque
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Country
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A country is a region that is identified as a distinct national entity in political geography. Sometimes the word countries is used to both to sovereign states and to other political entities, while other times it refers only to states. The word country comes from Old French contrée, itself derived from Vulgar Latin contrata and it most likely entered the English language after the Franco-Norman invasion during the 11th century. Areas much smaller than a state may be called by names such as the West Country in England, the Black Country, Constable Country. In many European countries the words are used for sub-divisions of the territory, as in the German Bundesländer. The modern Italian contrada is a word with its meaning varying locally, the term country is frequently used to refer to sovereign states. There is no agreement on the number of countries in the world. There are 206 sovereign states, of which 193 states are members of the United Nations, all are defined as states by declarative theory of statehood and constitutive theory of statehood. The latest proclaimed state is South Sudan in 2011, the Kingdom of Denmark, a sovereign state, comprises Metropolitan Denmark and two nominally separate countries—the Faroe Islands, and Greenland—which are almost fully internally self-governing. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, a state, comprises four separate countries, Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao. The degree of autonomy of non-sovereign countries varies widely, some are possessions of sovereign states, as several states have overseas territories, with citizenry at times identical and at times distinct from their own
5.
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
6.
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
Shaki, Azerbaijan
Stari Grad, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Kardzhali, Bulgaria
Kapsagay, Kazakhstan
Çayır, Kosovo
Kamenica, Macedonia
Umeå, Sweden
Taşkent, Turkey
Aşkabat, Turkmenistan
Mehmetçik, TRNC
