TURKEY- Türkiye Cumhuriyeti

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), officially the Republic of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe. East Thrace, the part of Turkey in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles (collectively called the Turkish Straits). Istanbul, which straddles Europe and Asia, is the largest city in the country, while Ankara is the capital. Turkey is bordered on its northwest by Greece and Bulgaria; north by the Black Sea; northeast by Georgia; east by Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran; southeast by Iraq; south by Syria and the Mediterranean Sea; and west by the Aegean Sea. Approximately 70 to 80 percent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish, while Kurds are the largest minority, at between 15 to 20 percent of the population.

At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilisations including the Anatolian peoples, Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians, and Armenians. Hellenization started during the era of Alexander the Great and continued into the Byzantine era. The Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, and their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolises the foundation of Turkey for many Turkish nationalists. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities called beyliks. Beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottomans started uniting the beyliks and conquering the Balkans. The Turkification of Anatolia increased during the Ottoman period. After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power declined with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmud II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy, along with the emancipation of all citizens.

The 1913 coup d'état effectively put the country under the control of the Three Pashas, who were largely responsible for the Empire's entry into World War I in 1914. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian and Pontic Greek subjects. After the Ottomans and the other Central Powers lost the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that had composed the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. The Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his comrades against the occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of the sultanate on 1 November 1922, the replacement of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) with the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923, with Atatürk as its first president. Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought, philosophy and customs into the new form of Turkish government.

Turkey's extraordinary ecosystem and habitat diversity has produced considerable species diversity. Anatolia is the homeland of many plants that have been cultivated for food since the advent of agriculture, and the wild ancestors of many plants that now provide staples for humankind still grow in Turkey. The diversity of Turkey's fauna is even greater than that of its flora. The number of animal species in the whole of Europe is around 60,000, while in Turkey there are over 80,000 (over 100,000 counting the subspecies). The Northern Anatolian conifer and deciduous forests is an ecoregion which covers most of the Pontic Mountains in northern Turkey, while the Caucasus mixed forests extend across the eastern end of the range. The region is home to Eurasian wildlife such as the Eurasian sparrowhawk, golden eagle, eastern imperial eagle, lesser spotted eagle, Caucasian black grouse, red-fronted serin, and wallcreeper. The narrow coastal strip between the Pontic Mountains and the Black Sea is home to the Euxine-Colchic deciduous forests, which contain some of the world's few temperate rainforests. The Turkish pine is mostly found in Turkey and other east Mediterranean countries. Several wild species of tulip are native to Anatolia, and the flower was first introduced to Western Europe with species taken from the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century.

There are 40 national parks, 189 nature parks, 31 nature preserve areas, 80 wildlife protection areas and 109 nature monuments in Turkey such as Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, Mount Nemrut National Park, Ancient Troya National Park, Ölüdeniz Nature Park and Polonezköy Nature Park. The Anatolian leopard is still found in very small numbers in the northeastern and southeastern regions of Turkey. The Eurasian lynx and the European wildcat are other felid species which are currently found in the forests of Turkey. Renowned domestic animals from Ankara, the capital of Turkey, include the Angora cat, Angora rabbit and Angora goat; and from Van Province the Van cat. The national dog breeds are the Anatolian Shepherd, Kangal, Malaklı and Akbaş.

The postal history of Turkey and its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, dates to the 18th century when foreign countries maintained courier services through their consular offices in the Empire. Although delayed in the development of its own postal service, in 1863 the Ottoman Empire became the second independent country in Asia (after Russia) to issue adhesive postage stamps, and in 1875, it became a founding member of the General Postal Union, soon to become the Universal Postal Union. The Ottoman Empire became the Republic of Turkey in 1923, and in the following years, its postal service became more modernized and efficient and its postage stamps expertly designed and manufactured.

The Ottoman Empire's early or "classic" stamp issues between 1863 and 1888 are popular among philatelists, and its postal cancellations have received extensive study. Philatelists collect stamps used in various parts of the Ottoman Empire, such as Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Greece. Turkey's stamps also have a complex history of overprints of interest to philatelists. On January 1, 1863, the Ottoman Empire issued its first adhesive postage stamps. It was the second independent country in Asia to issue adhesive stamps, preceded only by Russia in 1858, and two British colonies, Scinde District of India in 1852, India itself in 1854 and Ceylon in 1857. The Ottoman Empire's stamps came less than two years after its neighbor and former territory, Greece (independent 1832), issued its first stamps. The design consists of the tughra, the emblem of sovereignty, for the then current ruler Sultan Abdülaziz, over a crescent bearing the inscription in Ottoman Turkish Devleti Aliye Osmaniye, or "The Sublime Ottoman Empire".

Ptt, an abbreviation for Posta ve Telgraf Teşkilatı, is the national post and telegraph directorate of Turkey. Formerly, the organization was named Posta Telgraf Telefon. After the privatization of the telephone telecommunications service business, the directorate was renamed, keeping its acronym. It is headquartered in Ankara, and is known as TURKISH POST internationally. On 23 October 1840, during the reign of Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Ministry of Posts was established. In 1855, the first telegraph service and in 1909 the first telephone service were put into use. In the same year the name of the ministry was changed to Posta Telgraf Telefon ("Posts, Telegraph and Telephone" or PTT for short) a name which was used for 86 years. After the Turkish Republic replaced the Ottoman Empire in 1923, the ministry became a general directorate of the Republic. In 1995 the telephone and other telecommunication services were transferred to newly founded Turk Telecom (which was soon privatized). Accordingly, the directorate was renamed as "Organization of Post and Telegraph" (Turkish: Posta Telgraf Teşkilatı). Thus the former acronym PTT is kept.

 Latest airmail envelopes from Turkey