the republic of turkey is a large
country situated on the anatolian
peninsula and the southeastern most edge
of the balkans having served as the
bridge between europe and asia for
thousands of years at least for anyone
too lazy to travel to ukraine instead
turkey must nowadays find the
precariously delicate balance between
east and west and its geography poses
just as much of a challenge to its
neighbors as it does to itself so with
that in mind just how does turkey manage
the geographic challenges of internal
division mountainous terrain earthquakes
and numerous other issues
and how does this geography also affect
their neighbors
[Music]
this video was sponsored by lingoda
turkey is a transcontinental country
located 97 percent in asia and 3 percent
europe with this european portion known
as turkish thrace and the asian portion
known as anatolia
turkey is bordered by eight countries
greece bulgaria georgia armenia
azerbaijan iran iraq and syria as well
as the black sea to the north the aegean
seas of the west and the eastern
mediterranean to the south fun fact this
also means turkey's neighbors all use
six different writing systems jerry's
still out on what riding they use in the
seas though to more easily understand
how turkey is spread we can look to the
country's provinces
except there's 81 of them so for
simplicity we can also look to the seven
geographical regions the country is
divided into
in decreasing order population they are
the marmara region central anatolia the
mediterranean region the aegean region
southeastern anatolia the black sea
region and eastern anasolia
turkey's economic core in a sense are
the areas surrounding the aegean sea and
the dardanelles
this area contains many of turkey's
biggest cities including istanbul izmir
bursa idirnae and many others it is also
the closest part to europe in that part
of it literally is europe turkey's
biggest domestic challenge in terms of
economics politics culture and religion
has to do with its east-west split
turkey is a country known for being
split between the east and the west or
to be more specific europe and the
middle east
on the one hand more than 90 percent of
the population is islamic and the
national language shares a family with
the languages of central asia and
siberia however on the other hand the
country is secular at least on a
governmental level said language uses
the latin alphabet though then again so
do a lot of turkic languages and the
country is part of nato and the european
customs union which doesn't mean nothing
however the cultural split between
secular westward-leading liberals and
islamic eastward leading conservatives
turns turkey into a sort of gradient
with a clear cultural divide between
cosmopolitan istanbul or izmir and the
more traditional areas in the east
looking at a map of turkey's provinces
by gdp per capita there is a clear
westward bias as to which provinces are
richer
particularly those in the marmara and
aegean regions as well as the central
anatolia region home to the new capital
ankara this is in stark contrast to
regions further to the east including
the eastern and southeast anatolia
regions where the average resident is
statistically much poorer but in order
to properly carve a turkey you need
mountains
anatolia's north is lined by the pontic
alps while its south is lined by the
taurus mountains
these mountains know how to play the
long game when it comes to both romantic
and corporate pursuits wait no not that
kind of taurus turkey as a whole is a
largely hilly country with plateaus
interspersed among the hills and
mountains with around two-thirds of the
country at an elevation higher than 800
meters
certain passageways however have
historically allowed easier travel
between regions in particular the
silesian gates between the anatolian
plateau and the historic region of
cilicia and upper mesopotamia the region
of upper mesopotamia is perhaps
unsurprisingly home to the sources of
both the tigris and euphrates rivers on
which were built many of humanity's
first ever cities and nowadays the
republic of iraq
turkey has in recent years gone on a
damn building spree oh sorry a dam
building spree on the two rivers as part
of the southeastern anatolia project an
ongoing project by the turkish
government to build 22 dams and 19
hydroelectric power plants along the
tigris and euphrates providing water and
electricity to southeastern anatolia
this however has not had such positive
effects on downstream iraq and syria who
have been hit particularly hard by
recent droughts in the broader area as
well as similar projects undertaken by
iran this however points to one ace
turkey has up its leave because of its
geography
it's disproportionate influence outside
its borders
its largest city in non-capital istanbul
the largest city in europe is well known
for holding a crossing point between
europe and asia as well as a narrow
passageway between the black sea and the
mediterranean and the wider world
known as the bosphorus the potential
effects of turkey's maritime influence
also extends through the volgadon canal
in southern russia which connects the
caspian sea to the black sea and beyond
in effect turkey is one of the countries
controlling russia's access to the world
ocean
even though russia has over 37 000
kilometers of coastline though much of
it sits either on the pacific ocean
which lies far away from their primary
interests in europe and has relatively
few people living there or on the arctic
ocean which has even more nothing
even if you discount any ports that
freeze over in the winter or aren't that
deep or are in disputed territories they
all still have to go through turkey or
denmark both countries being
decades-long members of nato
and i mean you could also go up the
danube river and then through the ramen
danube canals of the rhine and then
answer the norse like that but if you're
worried about nato that's also not a
good plan
but how is turkey using its geography in
the context of the wider world even
outside the black sea find out after a
brief but hopefully funny word from our
sponsor
since fleisch at the category
of garvey
okay that's a word but if you want to
learn more words in german might suggest
your sponsor lingoda now one thing you
may or may not know about me is that i
know three languages besides my native
english
never took any classes on it something i
found to be instrumental in learning a
language though is immersion although
this doesn't necessarily have to mean
complete and total immersion this could
just mean taking a class taught by a
native speaker where the only language
spoken in the class is the one being
taught but what if you want to take a
language class but live in say nowhere
oklahoma with no hope of learning german
aside from going to germany that my
friends is where lingoda comes in
simply pick out which language you want
to learn sign up book what kind of
course you like and choose whatever
dates and times work best for you all at
home at whatever time you want these
courses allow you to have authentic
conversations with actual native
teachers all without having to leave the
comfort of your home or let's be honest
given my channel's demographics probably
more likely your parents house
and of course one of the affirmation
courses you can take are the sprints
super intensive courses where you can
take either 15 or 30 classes in a month
and if you take all those classes in a
month you actually get all your money
back how about that for a motivator to
go to every class
if you want to try out one of these
prank courses you can go to the link in
the description or use the code canopus
at checkout and you can get 25 or 20
euros off the deposit
alright now back to your scheduled
content
although the country is largely kept to
its current borders since 1923 the one
exception being hattai formerly part of
french syria until it was handed over
under somewhat dubious circumstances in
1939 turkey has launched new ventures
into the middle east africa and the red
sea
after nearly a century of self-imposed
isolation from most major world affairs
turkey has started to become a major
player in the geopolitics of the region
turkey maintains military presences of
varying sizes in albania azerbaijan
bosnia and herzegovina northern cyprus
iraq kosovo libya qatar somalia and
syria turkey has begun to make power
plays in the red sea region in
particular with turkish and qatari
support in somalia and turkey settling a
650 million dollar agreement with sudan
to build a passenger and military
docking facility in the old port city of
suwakin
this however combined with their
friendly relations with qatar has
largely strained relations with saudi
arabia the uae and egypt though turkey
and egypt have also shared a mutual
rivalry over the course of the past
decade in light of the ousting of
egyptian president muhammad morsi and
who gets to dominate the eastern
mediterranean
uh excuse me what are you doing here
what i'm just here to sell popcorn while
i talk about all the drama
okay well could you at least maybe not
do that on the stage please thank you
hey turkey is there any reason your word
for me is the same as your word for corn
back at home however nearly the entirety
of the country is also subject to strong
earthquakes it's not necessarily chile
level or anything but earthquakes are
frequently known to devastate parts of
the country and have been throughout the
area's long history
most of anatolia sits on its own plate
the anatolian plate sandwiched between
the eurasian arabian and african plates
and the smaller gnc plate resulting in
fault lines right through the aegean sea
along the pontic alps and back southwest
through hatai in january 447
constantinople was struck by a suspected
magnitude 6.5 earthquake destroying
large sections of the theodosian walls
the timing could not have been worse
either with the till of the hun
campaigning around the balkans
forcing the citizens of constantinople
to rebuild the wall in a mere 60 days
these earthquakes don't discriminate
though and large ones occur quite often
across the country
often including near heavily populated
areas
turkey is a country that in many ways
wears two faces but the real question is
is turkey a european country or an asian
country
the only real answer to that is quite
simply
yes
[Music]
you