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.
Siirt (electoral district)
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Siirt is an electoral district of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. It elects three members of parliament to represent the province of the name for a four-year term by the DHondt method. Population reviews of electoral district are conducted before each general election. Siirts seat allocation has been remained unchanged at three seats since 1991, more recently, Siirt was a district where the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party ran independent candidates in an attempt to overcome the 10 percent national electoral threshold. One independent candidate was elected here in 2011 and has joined the BDP. A fresh ballot was held on 9 March 2003
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
9.
Kurdish language
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Kurdish is a continuum of Northwestern Iranian languages spoken by the Kurds in Western Asia. Kurdish forms three dialect groups known as Northern Kurdish, Central Kurdish, and Southern Kurdish, a separate group of non-Kurdish Northwestern Iranian languages, the Zaza–Gorani languages, are also spoken by several million Kurds. Recent studies estimate between 8 to 20 million native Kurdish speakers in Turkey, the majority of the Kurds speak Northern Kurdish. The literary output in Kurdish was mostly confined to poetry until the early 20th century, today, there are two principal written Kurdish dialects, namely Northern Kurdish in the northern parts of the geographical region of Kurdistan and Central Kurdish further east and south. Central Kurdish is, along with Arabic, one of the two languages of Iraq and is in political documents simply referred to as Kurdish. The Kurdish languages belong to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European family and they are generally classified as Northwestern Iranian languages, or by some scholars as intermediate between Northwestern and Southwestern Iranian. Martin van Bruinessen notes that Kurdish has a strong south-western Iranian element, whereas Zaza, windfuhr identified Kurdish dialects as Parthian, albeit with a Median substratum. The most argued hypothesis on the localisation of the territory of the Kurds remains D. N. Mackenzies theory. He has tried to reconstruct the alleged Persian-Kurdish-Baluchi linguistic unity presumably in the parts of Iran. Kurdish is divided into three groups, where dialects from different groups are not mutually intelligible without acquired bilingualism, Northern Kurdish is the largest dialect group, spoken by an estimated 15 to 20 million Kurds in Turkey, Syria, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran. Central Kurdish is spoken by an estimated 6 to 7 million Kurds in much of Iraqi Kurdistan, Sorani is a written standard of Central Kurdish developed in the 1920s and was later adopted as the standard orthography of Kurdish as an official language of Iraq. Southern Kurdish is spoken by about 3 million Kurds in Kermanshah and Ilam provinces of Iran, in historical evolution terms, Kurmanji is less modified than Sorani and Pehlewani in both phonetic and morphological structure. The Kermanshahi group has influenced by among other things its closer cultural proximity to Persian. Philip G. Kreyenbroek, a writing in 1992, says. Sorani is normally written in a form of the Arabic script. Reasons for describing Kurmanji and Sorani as dialects of one language are their common origin, for example, Sorani has neither gender nor case-endings, whereas Kurmanji has both. Differences in vocabulary and pronunciation are not as great as between German and English, but they are still considerable, according to Encyclopaedia of Islam, although Kurdish is not a unified language, its many dialects are interrelated and at the same time distinguishable from other Western Iranian languages. The same source classifies different Kurdish dialects as two groups, northern and central
10.
Bitlis Province
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Bitlis Province is a province of eastern Turkey, located to the west of Lake Van. The majority of the population is Kurdish. Bitlis was formed as a district in the 17th Century. The administrative center was the town of Bitlis, which was called Bagesh, Bitlis Province is divided into 7 districts, Adilcevaz Ahlat Bitlis Güroymak Hizan Mutki Tatvan As of 1920, the province was producing small amounts of iron, copper, lead, and sulphur. Even smaller amounts of gold and silver were found in the areas of Sairt, salt made up the largest mineral industry in the province, so much that it was exported to surrounding provinces. The salt was produced in pans, using evaporation, and taking 8 to 10 days to mature, the technique and trade was mainly run by local Kurds. The British described the technique as being primitive, Nemrut Lake Nemrut Pictures of the city of Bitlis, the capital of Bitlis province - and of nearby Siirt Bitlis Weather Forecast Information The Armenian History and Presence in Bitlis
11.
Batman Province
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Batman Province is a Turkish province southeast of Anatolia. The provinces population exceeded 500,000 in 2010, the province is important because of its reserves and production of oil which was started in the 1940s. There is a 494-km long oil pipeline from Batman to the Turkish port of İskenderun, cotton is the main agricultural product. A railway line connects Batman with the provinces of Diyarbakır and Elâzığ. The Batman River flows though the area, Batman with 246,700 inhabitants, is the provincial capital. The province is also of interest from a point of view. Sights include the Imam Abdullah Dervish monastery, the bridge of Camiü‘r Rızk, the majority of the provinces population is Kurdish. The Batman Province contains the strategic Tigris river with fertile lands by its sides, therefore, it was inhabited from prehistoric times, likely from the Neolithic period, according to archeological evidence. First documented evidence of settlements in the dates back to 7th century BC. An artificial island was created in this marshy area and it was named Elekhan, and had an independent status for 194 years from 546 BC till the invasion of Alexander the Great in 352 BC. The Batman Province was a center in the 4th–6th centuries AD. In the 11th–12th centuries it was ruled by the Great Seljuq Empire and Artuqids, the city is a cultural center of the Batman Province and as such was declared as a natural conservation area in 1981. Around 4th–6th centuries AD the province became an outpost of the Silk Road and it was populated by Assyrian Christians and also had a significant presence of Pontic Greeks, Baghdadi Jews and Armenians, who lived in the region from the 3rd millennium BC to the late 19th century. Tigranakert, the ancient capital of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia founded in the 1st century BC, was located at Silvan in the Batman Province. It was built by King Tigran the Great around 95–55 BC, significant changes in the language and management of the province were brought in 1515 by Mahmoud Pasha Elekhani. It is believed that a variant of his name, Elah, was transformed into Iluh, development of oil fields resulted in relocation of Turkish people into a mostly Kurd-populated Batman Province. This brought ethnic conflicts which escalated in 1990s, more than 180 civilians were killed in the Batman city area by unidentified gunmen between 1992 and 1993. The province became a stronghold of Turkish Hezbollah and hosted its camp where the militants received political, recent individual incidents include the following,1 Turkish soldier was killed and 2 wounded during clashes in the province on 15 April 2010
12.
Mardin Province
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Mardin Province, is a province of Turkey with a population of 744,606. The population was 835,173 in 2000, the capital of the Mardin Province is Mardin. Mardin comes from the Syriac word and means fortresses, the first known civilization were the Subarian-Hurrians who were then succeeded in 3000BCE by the Hurrians. The Elamites gained control around 2230 BCE. and were followed by the Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans, the Christian community is concentrated on the Tur Abdin plateau and in the town of Midyat, with a smaller community in the provincial capital
13.
Van Province
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Van Province is a province in eastern Turkey, between Lake Van and the Iranian border. It is 19,069 km2 in area and had a population of 1,035,418 at the end of 2010 and its adjacent provinces are Bitlis to the west, Siirt to the southwest, Şırnak and Hakkâri to the south, and Ağrı to the north. The capital is the city of Van, the majority of the provinces population is Kurdish. In the 9th century BC the Van area was the center of the Urartian kingdom, the area was a major Armenian population center. The region came under the control of the Armenian Orontids in the 7th century BC, by the early 2nd century BC it was part of the Kingdom of Armenia. It became an important center during the reign of the Armenian king, Tigranes II, the area continued to be contested and was passed on between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavids for many centuries afterwards, all the way up to during the 19th century
14.
Siirt
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Siirt is a city in southeastern Turkey and the seat of Siirt Province. The population of the city according to the 2009 census was 129,188, the majority of the citys population is Arabic and Kurdish. Previously known as Saird, in pre-Islamic times Siirt was an episcopacy of the Byzantine Church, the Chronicle of Seert was preserved in the city, it describes the ecclesiastical history of the Persian realm through the middle of the seventh century. From 1858 to 1915 the city was the seat of a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church, most of the citys Assyrians, including their archbishop were killed during the Assyrian Genocide. The mosque was restored in 1965, Siirt is famous in Turkey for its hand-made blankets. Many visitors find themselves departing with one offered as a present, the traditional kilims produced by the Jirikan clan and revived since 1996 through joint efforts involving official instances and citizens are also much prized. Another product of interest is the Bıttım soaps proper to the region, Siirt also has an extremely rich culinary and spa culture. Depending district centers of Aydınlar with its historical medrese is renowned as a religious center, Siirt was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğans constituency from 2003 to 2007. His wife, Mrs. Emine Erdoğan, is from Siirt, although Siirt remains one of the poorer cities in Turkey, some neighborhoods have fine and modern housing including new shops, banks and hotels. Siirt has a continental and Mediterranean climate with very hot and dry summers and cold. During winter months there is frequent frost and occasional snowfall, Siirt George_Grigore, Les principales caracteristiques de larabe parle a Siirt
15.
Tillo
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Tillo or Aydınlar is a district of Siirt Province of Turkey. Name of the district was Aydınlar until 7 November 2013, syriac language Tillo means holy spirits, and appropriately it is the home of many tombs. In the 1514 reign of Yavuz Sultan Selim, Tillo was taken by the Ottoman Empire by the Çaldıran Victory, after Tillo became a district of Siirt, it was named Aydınlar. It has an ancient cultural and social history, lots of visitors come to visit the mausoleums of holy persons such İsmail Fakirullah Hz. İbrahim Hakkı Hz
16.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
17.
Istanbul Province
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Istanbul Province, also the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is a province located in north-west Turkey. It has an area of 5,343.02 square kilometres and it is surrounded by the provinces of Tekirdağ to the west, Kocaeli to the east, the Black Sea to the northern part and the Sea of Marmara to the south. The Bosphorus Strait divides the province in two parts, the European side and the Asian side, out of a population of 12.9 million in 2009, roughly 8 million lived on the European side and the remaining 5 million lived on the Asian. The metropolitan municipality of Istanbul has had the boundaries as the province since 2004
18.
Denizli Province
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Denizli Province is a province of Turkey in Western Anatolia, on high ground above the Aegean coast. Neighbouring provinces are Uşak to the north, Burdur, Isparta, Afyon to the east, Aydın, Manisa to the west and it is located between the coordinates 28° 30’ and 29° 30’ E and 37° 12’ and 38° 12’ N. It covers an area of 11,868 km², and the population is 931,823, the population was 750,882 in 1990. The provincial capital is the city of Denizli, approximately 28-30% of the land is plain, 25% is high plateau and tableland, and 47% is mountainous. At 2571m Mount Honaz is the highest in the province, babadag in the Mentes range has a height of 2308 meters. The biggest lake in Denizli is Acıgöl, which means bitter lake, there is a thermal spring to the west of Sarayköy, at the source of the Great Menderes River, which contains bicarbonates and sulfates. There is another hot spring in Kizildere which reaches 200˚C, a geothermal steam source was first found in the region in 1965 during drilling work. Today there is a plant producing electricity from the geothermal steam. Only 11% of the energy source is used to produce electricity and 89% of it. In general the Aegean region has a mild climate, however, it becomes harsher at altitude. Temperatures can rise to 55 °C during summer and fall to -5 °C in winter, there are about 80 days with precipitation, mainly during winter. There are traces of prehistoric cultures throughout the province, including evidence of pre-Hittite cultures, the Hittites were followed by Phrygians, Lydians and Persians, and then cities founded by the ancient Greeks and Alexander the Great. The first real settlement was the city of Laodicea on the Lycus which was established by King Antiochus II for his wife Laodice, Laodicea is located 6 km north of the city of Denizli. The city of Hierapolis was established around 190 BC by the Pergamene Kingdom, the calcified terraces and pools of Pamukkale now stand below the ruins of Hierapolis. The two cities, Laodicea and Hierapolis later came under Roman rule, and with the division of the Empire in 395 were left within the boundaries of the East Roman Empire. The province has strong connections, in the Book of Revelation. The voice says, Write down what you see and send the book to the Churches in these seven cities, Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. The Church of Laodicea was a place even in pre-Christian times
19.
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
20.
Bolu Province
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Bolu Province is a province in northwestern Turkey. Its an important midpoint between the capital, Ankara and the largest city in the country, Istanbul and it covers an area of 7,410 km², and the population is 271,208. This is a forested mountain district centered on the city of Bolu. There is plenty of forest but little agricultural land, Bolu has a long tradition of high quality cuisine. Annual cookery competitions are held in Mengen, the province is drained by the Bolu River and the Koca River. The forests, lakes and mountains are rich in wildlife including three species and very popular weekend and holiday retreats for walkers and climbers. Parts of the province are vulnerable to earthquakes and it is not definitely known when Bolu was first founded. There are some archaeological findings dating back about 100,000 years that suggest the region was inhabited then, the area now in Bolu Province was in eastern Bithynia and southwestern Paphlagonia. The town of Bithynium from which the area takes its name is the modern Bolu, by about 375 BCE, Bithynia had gained its independence from Persia, and King Bas subsequently defeated Alexanders attempt to take it. The Bithynian region with parts of Paphlagonia remained its own kingdom until 88 BCE when it came under Mithridates VI. With Roman help the last Bithynian king, Nicomedes IV regained his throne and this led to the Third Mithridatic War and the fall of Pontus, the area was incorporated into the Roman Empire as a single province joining Paphlagonia with Bithynia. Under the folling Byzantine Empire the Bolu area was divided from western Bithynia at the Sakarya River, the Sakarya is still the southern and western boundary of the province. The Byzantine Empire briefly lost the Bolu area to the Seljuk Turks after the 1071 Battle of Manzikert, after the end of the Komnenos dynasty, the Turks gradually took the Bolu area back. About 1240 the Seljuk Turks took the part of the Bolu area from the Byzantine Empire. Due to their assistance in taking it and Sinop, the Chobanids were given territory and adjacent areas to the north. The Chobanids were relatively independent of the Sultan and that eastern area fell under the Isfendiyarids between 1292 and 1461. In 1461 it was incorporated into the rest of the Ottoman Empire, by 1265, the western part of the Bolu area was again acquired by the Seljuk Turks, but it fell to the arms of Orhan I and the Ottoman Empire in the early to mid-1300s. The two areas were reunited in 1461, under Mehmed II, in the 1864 Ottoman Empire administrative reorganization, Bolu was created as an independent sanjak, although it was geographically part of the Kastamonu Vilayet
