Major country in Asia Minor
Turkey is a large peninsula stretching 1,600 km long and 600 km wide. It is a country of mountains and high plateaus. Its territory is Eurasian and has an area of 783 562 km². Turkey shares 2,627 km of land borders with 8 countries: Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (an enclave of Azerbaijan), Iran, Iraq and Syria. The country, famous for its atypical geographical location straddling two continents, is also famous for its geographical diversity. The western part (Eastern Thrace, or Trakya) represents only 3% of the territory. The rest of the country represents Asia Minor (Anatolia, or Anadolu) which covers more than 780 000 km². These two parts are separated by the Dardanelles Strait, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus.
An exceptional coastline
The country is surrounded by four seas and boasts 7,200 km of coastline. In the north, Turkey is bordered by the Black Sea (Karadeniz). With its jagged coastline dominated by the Pontic chain, the Kaskar glaciers, its dense coniferous forests and its deserted beaches, this region is little known to tourists and yet offers superb landscapes and exceptional natural resources.
The Sea of Marmara delimits Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. Located between the two continents, it communicates with the Black Sea through the Bosphorus in the northeast and with the Aegean Sea in the southeast through the Dardanelles Strait.
The Aegean Sea (Ege) has the longest coastline, 2,800 km of indented land, making it a paradise for lovers of coves and beaches. Many islands dot the Aegean coast. They are all Greek except Imbros (Gokçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcaada) which were given to Turkey when the empire was dismantled. Finally, the Mediterranean Sea (Akdeniz), famous for its turquoise coast, owes its name to its clear waters and extends from ancient Lycia to Hatay.
A diversity of landscapes
Turkey is not just a coastline, it is a mountainous country with very diverse sub-regions. There are lakes, rivers, mountains, rolling steppes and geographical wonders such as the rock formations of Cappadocia or the Pamukkale tufa. What is called "Central Anatolia" is in fact a vast and high steppe plateau on which mountain ranges and the spectacular fairy chimneys of Cappadocia point.
Northeastern Anatolia is characterized by an inhospitable and mountainous yet beautiful landscape. If this region is preserved from mass tourism, it has some nice surprises. It is here that you can watch the sun set at 5,137 m on the snowy peak of Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı), bordering Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan. It is also here that you will discover the rapids in the valleys of Yusufeli or the plains around the walled city of Kars.
Southeastern Anatolia, a territory largely inhabited by the Kurds, is bordered to the south by Iraq and Syria. It is characterized by its moving and windy steppes, punctuated by rocky outcrops. The region is home to the famous Lake Van (Van Gölü). This mountain lake with very alkaline waters is the largest lake in Turkey, the second largest in the Middle East and the largest alkaline lake in the world. It is 120 kilometers long and 80 kilometers wide, with an average depth of 171 meters and a maximum depth of 451 meters. Its surface area is 3,755 km² and it is located at an altitude of 1,640 meters. It is located in the largest seismic zone of Turkey.
The country is an increasingly popular destination for hikers who enjoy its snow-capped mountains, the highest of which is Ağrı Dağı. The highest point of the Ararat volcano marks the last gasp of the Himalayas. It is also a country of rivers (both the Tigris and the Euphrates are born in Turkey) but also of huge lakes: the Salt Lake (Tuz Gölü) and those of Van, Burdur, Eğirdir, Beyşehir, Iznik, in particular.
Seismic risks in Turkey
Turkey is located on one of the most active seismic zones in the world. Since 1939, the country has experienced about 30 earthquakes of major intensity. The population still remembers the tragic 1999 earthquake of magnitude 7.6 that hit northwestern Anatolia, as well as the cities of Izmit and Adapazarı. The disaster caused great destruction and killed nearly 20,000 people. The 2011 earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1, also very destructive, hit the Van region and generated the annihilation of 11,000 buildings, injured more than 4,000 people, killed 600 and left several thousand homeless. In 2017, the country knows again several earthquakes in the west and the south of the country. On February 6, 2023, two particularly devastating earthquakes of magnitude 7.8 and 7.5 hit the east of the country in the border area between Turkey and Syria. The violence was such that the tremors were felt as far away as Greenland. The extent of the human and material damage is considerable. Several tens of thousands of victims and injured are to be deplored. It is one of the five deadliest earthquakes in the world since the early 2000s. The fault called "strike-slip" 150 kilometers long and 25 kilometers thick was particularly destructive. Some real estate developers who tried to flee the country after the disaster were arrested by the police, accused of not having respected the seismic standards in these particularly exposed areas. In view of the recurrence of the tremors, experts predict that there will be other major earthquakes in the country in the years to come.
Cappadocia, a singular geology
Sixty million years ago, the activity of several volcanoes combined with earth forces to create the Taurus mountain ranges, as well as depressions and gullies in the heart of Anatolia. 50 million years later, these furrows and hollows were filled with magma, ash, rocks and mud gushing out of the erupting craters of the surrounding volcanoes: the Göllü (Göllü Dağ), Ercides (Erciyes Dağı), Keciboyduran, Melendiz and Develi Mountains.
Over time, the depressions became vast plains that appeared on the volcanic ash and residue, constituting the Anatolian Highlands. The porosity and weatherability of the soil is what made the unique landscape of the fairy chimneys possible. Indeed, the minerals which filled the depressions were very permeable to the variations of temperature, to the flows of the rivers and to the bad weather, to the wind and to the rain. The water infiltrating in the soil came to alter the Anatolian continental shelf. In some places, erosion has created lunar sculptures: chimneys, cones, canyons and rocky peaks... It is the volcanic tuff, a very soft rock, which has given shape to this fairy tale spectacle in the semi-desert plains.
Cappadocia forms a kind of circle of fifty kilometers in diameter, in which there are several cities: Kayseri, Aksaray, Nevşehir, Göreme for the most important. The population of the region is around one million and the villages are very close to each other. The region is known for its cave dwellings. From the 8th to the 13th century, Byzantine monks invested some geological formations to make their homes. Thus, you can visit entire cities with churches and monasteries built in the rock, often covered with frescoes more or less elaborate, including the famous open-air museum of Göreme. Other preserved and admirable sites include the underground cities of Kaymaklı and Derinkuyu (a must-see), the canyons of Soganlı and Ilhara.
