Turkey is a rapidly developing secular democracy with a population of nearly 70 million and is a candidate for membership of the European Union. It is the only country to straddle Europe and Asia, a fact that is reflected in its complex cultural make up. Asiatic Turkey, or Anatolia, constitutes the bulk of the country. It consists of a vast peninsula framed by four seas, the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean and the Mediterranean, each of which has its own distinctive character. Both in human and geographical terms, Turkey is a country of immense diversity. There are crowded cosmopolitan cities, such as Istanbul and Izmir, high plateau, forested mountains and Mediterranean beaches. The climate and ecology are equally varied, ranging from temperate rain forests on the eastern Black Sea Coast to semi-desert in the Southeast. More.....