Have you ever been to Turkey?

If yes, then perhaps you already know how nice the country is, full of history, wonderfully clean coast line, friendly people, Good food, beautiful traditional music, etc.

However, if not have not been yet and want to learn more about Turkey and what is has to offer, then you will find some useful information on other web pages listed below.

My clients ask me questions about my country which often can not be answered by browsing through the common web pages and so I thought to draw your attention the following facts about Turkey which might be of some interest.

Turkey ( spelt TÜRKIYE in Turkish) is:

779,452 sq.km area in total which is almost twice the size of Germany and nearly 3 times bigger than the United Kingdom - all in one large landmass (almost).

The north part of the country borders the Black Sea (Karadeniz). The Turkish Black Sea coast stretches from Artvin in the east (near the Georgian border to the slightly beyond the Bosphorus ( Istanbul Bogazi ) at the Bulgarian border in the west. The Bosphorus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara (Marmara Denizi) which is connected by the Dardanelles ( Çanakkale Bogazi ) to the Aegean (Ege Denizi) and the Mediterranean (Akdeniz) to the south. The Turkish Aegean coast stretches from the Dardanelles to the Bodrum/Marmaris/Fethiye area. The southern Turkish coast, which stretches to the Syrian border near Iskenderun, borders the eastern Mediterranean. All together the coastline is more than 3000 km long.

The capital of Turkey is Ankara, a city located in the middle of the country and full of diplomats and politicians ( who think they rule the country, or whom we all believe we have elected to rule!). It is situated from the sea and has an extreme climate: very hot( +35 / + 40 C ) and dry in summer, and very cold ( -10 ) and dry in the winter. Although it has an old quarter, the city of Ankara is very new, having been planned and built in the 1920s by Kemal Ataturk. The current population is around 3.600.000. Istanbul is the biggest city in Turkey, located on the Bosphorus in the north west of the country. It has a population of about 9.168.000, and occupies about 5162 .sq.km half either side of the Bosphorus. Historically, it is a very important cultural and economic center bridging the two continents of Asia and Europe, also providing links with Russia to the north and the Middle East and North Africa to the south. The city has grown enormously in the last 50 years and keeps growing. Some statistical reports say that 8500 people arrive everyday to stay. Putting it another way, the population of Istanbul is growing 34% annually. This is not the biggest increasing in Turkey, however - the population of Antalya, one of the most popular Holiday towns in the country is increasing 40.46% a year.

Apart from these main cities, there are 78 more , all very attractive, each with its own character, cuisine, and industry/commerce.

They say we are the only nation who gets locked in their houses when the government decides to carry out a census (count the population). So we all stay at home that day and wait until they come to count how many of us there are in each house. The result for the last census (1997) was 62.865.574, with 21.983.000 living in the villages and the rest in the urban centers. But the rumour is that they made an error in the final count so they may have to do it again. Other interesting facts are is that 70% of the total population is younger then 35 years old, and 8% of men can not read and write.

Turkey is a well known in Europe as a summer holiday destination but we also have 5 big ski resorts, BOLU, BURSA, SARIKAMIS, KAYSERI and ERZURUM. They are not quite as sophisticated as the Alps but, with winter temperatures of minus 30 common in many eastern and central parts of the country, they get a lot of snow.

The currency in Turkey is Turkish LIRA. Trying to work out its value relative to other currencies is confusing, for example, for 1 pound sterling:
In January 1991 we paid 5.934 TL
In December 1991 we paid 9.482 TL
In January 1999 we paid 544.387 TL
And in December 1999 we paid 850.000 TL

I can see from your smile that you are dreaming of giving up work, coming to Turkey with your pounds (or German marks, US dollars etc.) and having good time. Sorry to disappoint you but with rampant inflation, a beer that costs 500,000 TL in January will cost 1,000,000 in December, and Turkish Lira prices are increasing faster than foreign currency exchange rates. Somehow our politicians are managing this.

There are around 51 different banks operating in Turkey, including Banka Di Roma, Commerz Bank, Bank Mellat etc. Early this year 8 small private banks collapsed, but the government compensated the clients for their losses. Last year the banks were offering 40% interest on US dollar deposits. They managed to pay believe it or not, because the government was borrowing money from these banks at very high interest to pay debts, so they were trying to collect as much as they could. The paradise is over now and it is difficult for the average man to work out how they managed it last year. This year interest rates are back to normal at about 4-5% for US dollars.

Here in Turkey, by law, banks operate in the International way. You can open any foreign currency account as non-Turkish citizen and transfer the funds anywhere in the world in that currency with no limitation on the amount.

I have not yet met a non-Turkish person, who visited Turkey and left with a general bad impression. This is not a bad record as around 9.500.000 visitors in 1997 spent on average 720 US dollars (annual income from tourism in 1997 was 7.000 000 000 USD).

To conclude the webpage here are a few more facts aobout Turkey (if you still interested) Of the current population of about 62 million Turks, 46 million are more than 12 years old, 22 million are registered workers, and 12 million are employed in agriculture and fishing. Today the minimum monthly wage for an unskilled worker is around 87.000.000 TL (134 US dollars), and the average 2 bedroom, 65 sq.m house costs about 150-200 US dollars per month to rent. A skilled worker such as a welder or brick layer gets approximately 450 US dollars a month. A loaf of bread (300 grams) is 100.000 TL (about 15 US cents) and beef is 8 US dollars per kilo (that's about 4 US dollars or 3 pounds sterling per pound weight). I have rounded off the figures as close as possible to make the reading easier for you.

I hope you do not feel you have wasted your time reading the above. Please e-mail or telephone me if you want to know more, I would be glad to help.

Here are some useful web links for our visitors;

www.bodrum-bodrum.com; the best online guide from history to weather forecast for our city, Bodrum...
www.turkey.org; everything about our homeland...
weather forecast for bodrum...
windforecast for bodrum...