Turkey

                                                         
Turkey officially the Republic of Turkey , is a parliamentary republic largely located inWestern Asia with the portion of Eastern Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast;Armenia, Iran and the  Azerbaijani  exclave  of Nakhchivan to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south. The Mediterranean Sea is to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. Turkey's location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia makes it a country of significant geostrategic importance
 Administrative Divisions
Turkey has a unitary structure in terms of administration and this aspect is one of the most important factors shaping the Turkish public administration. When three powers (executive, legislative and judiciary) are taken into account as the main functions of the state, local administrations have little power. In other words, there are not units called "states" in Turkey and the provinces and cities come after the central administration. Local administrations were established to provide services in place and the government is represented by the governors and city governors. Besides the governors and the city governors, other senior public officials are also appointed by the central government rather than appointed by mayors or elected by constituents.

Turkey is subdivided into 81 provinces for administrative purposes. Each province is divided into districts, for a total of 923 districts.

Turkey is also subdivided into 7 regions and 21 subregions for geographic, demographic and economic purposes; this does not refer to an administrative division.
Climate
The coastal areas of Turkey bordering the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas have a temperate Mediterranean climate, with hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters.^[159] The coastal areas bordering the Black Sea have a temperate Oceanic climate with warm, wet summers and cool to cold, wet winters.^[159] The Turkish Black Sea coast receives the greatest amount of precipitation and is the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation throughout the year The eastern part of that coast averages 2,200 millimetres (87 in) annually which is the highest precipitation in the country.
POLITICS
Turkey is a parliamentary representative democracy. Since its foundation as a republic in 1923, Turkey has developed a strong tradition of secularism.Turkey's constitution governs the legal framework of the country. It sets out the main principles of government and establishes Turkey as a unitary centralized state. The President of the Republic is the head of state and has a largely ceremonial role. The president is elected for a five-year term by direct elections and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is first president elected by direct voting.The Prime Minister is Ahmet Davutoğlu 
       
Erdogan                        Davutoğlu      

Tourism
Tourism in Turkey has experienced rapid growth in the last twenty years, and constitutes an important part of the economy. In 2013, 37.8 million foreign visitors arrived in Turkey, which ranked as the 6th most popular tourism destination in the world; they contributed $27.9 billion to Turkey's revenues.^[188] In 2012, 15 percent of the tourists were from Germany, 11 percent from Russia, 8 percent from theUnited Kingdom, 5 percent from Bulgaria, 4 percent each from Georgia, the Netherlands and Iran, 3 percent from France, 2 percent each from the USA and Syria, and 40 percent from other countries.^[189] Turkey has 13 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as the "Historic Areas of Istanbul", the "Rock Sites of Cappadocia", the "Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük", "Hattusa: the Hittite Capital", the "Archaeological Site of Troy", "Pergamon and its Multi-Layered Cultural Landscape", "Hierapolis – Pamukkale", and "Mount Nemrut" and 51 World Heritage Sites in tentative list, such as the archaeological sites or historic urban centers of Göbekli Tepe, Gordion, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, Perga, Lycia, Sagalassos, Aizanoi, Zeugma, Ani, Harran, Mardin, Konya and Alanya.^[191] Turkey hosts two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which are the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Temple of Artemis.
Education

The Ministry of National Education is responsible for pre-tertiary education.^[266] This is compulsory and lasts twelve years: four years each of primary school, middle school and high school.^[267] Less than half of 25-34 year old Turks have completed at least high school, compared with an OECD average of over 80 percent.^[268] Basic education in Turkey is considered to lag behind other OECD countries, with significant differences between high and low performers.^[269] Turkey is ranked 32nd out of 34 in the OECD's PISA study.^[267] Access to high-quality school heavily depends on the performance in the secondary school entrance exams, to the point that some students begin taking private tutoring classes when they are 10 years old.^[269] The overall adult literacy rate in 2011 was 94.1 percent; 97.9 percent for males and 90.3 percent for females.^[270]

By 2011, there were 166 universities in Turkey.^[271] Entry to higher education depends on the Student Selection Examination (ÖSS). In 2008, the quota of admitted students was 600,000, compared to 1,700,000 who took the ÖSS exam in 2007.^[272] Except for the Open Education Faculty (Turkish: Açıköğretim Fakültesi) at Anadolu University, entrance is regulated by the national ÖSS examination, after which high school graduates are assigned to universities according to their performance.^[273] According to the 2012–2013 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the top university in Turkey is Middle East Technical University (in the 201–225 rank range), followed by Bilkent University and Koç University (both in the 226–250 range), Istanbul Technical University and Boğaziçi University (in the 276-300 bracket).
Religion

Turkey is a secular state with no official state religion; the Turkish Constitution provides for freedom of religion and conscience.^[240][241] The role of religion has been a controversial debate over the years since the formation of Islamist parties.^[242] For many decades, the wearing of the hijab was banned in schools and government buildings because it was viewed as a symbol of political Islam. However, the ban was lifted from universities in 2011, from government buildings in 2013,^[243] and from schools in 2014.^[244]

 

Islam is the dominant religion of Turkey with 99.8 percent of the population being registered as Muslim.^[17][245] while some sources give a little lower estimate of 96.4 percent,^[228] with the most popular sect being the Hanafite school of Sunni Islam. The highest Islamic religious authority is the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı); it interprets the Hanafi school of law, and is responsible for regulating the operation of the country's 80,000 registered mosques and employing local and provincial imams.^[246] Academics suggest the Alevi population may be from 15 to 20 million,^[247][248] and according to Aksiyon magazine, the number of Shiite Twelvers (excluding Alevis) is 3 million (4.2 percent).^[249] There are also some Sufi Muslims.^[250] Roughly 2 percent are non-denominational Muslims.