Straddling the continents of Europe and Asia, Turkey tries to be a bridge between West and East. The portion of Turkey's land in Europe may be small (about 5 percent), but the country's largest city, Istanbul, is there. With 9.7 million people, Istanbul is the third most populous European urban area, after Moscow and Paris. The Asian part of Turkey is dominated by the dry plateau of Anatolia; the coastal areas of Anatolia consist of fertile lowlands. The country, especially northern Turkey, suffers from severe earthquakes. Mount Ararat, the highest point in Turkey at 5,137 meters (16,854 feet), is the biblical resting-place of Noah's ark.

The Ottoman Empire, which was centered here for 600 years, commanded vast stretches of northern Africa, southeastern Europe, and western Asia until it fell to the Allied armies during World War I. In 1923 Mustafa Kemal—know as Atatürk, Father of the Turks—founded the republic and sought to transform a conservative Islamic society into a secular, westernized state. Atatürk insisted that Turkish be written with the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic characters. He wanted women liberated from the Islamic veil, and he led the fight to win them the vote in 1934.

Turkey joined the UN in 1945, and NATO in 1952. Although Turkey and Greece both belong to NATO, disputes over the Aegean Sea and Cyprus strain relations between the two countries. Turkish forces invaded Cyprus in 1974 to protect the Turkish-Cypriot community during a military coup—it still maintains some 30,000 troops in northern Cyprus. Southeastern Turkey saw years of civil war in the 1980s and 1990s between Turkish forces and Kurds from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who wanted to form an independent Kurdish state. Relations improved when the Turkish parliament passed laws giving more rights to Kurds.

In 1990 Turkey supported the West against Iraq following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and in 2003 allowed U.S. forces to use Turkish air space in the Iraq war. In 1999 Turkey gained approval as a candidate country for membership in the European Union. There are more than three million Turks working and living in EU countries—most in Germany. Most trade is with Europe, and many European vacationers come to Turkey for the climate, fine beaches, resorts, Roman ruins, and Crusader castles.