Turkey Tour Services
Turkey known officially as the Republic of Turkey, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north.
Separating Anatolia and Thrace are the Sea of Marmara and the Turkish Straits (the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles), which are commonly reckoned to delineate the boundary between Europe and Asia, thereby making Turkey a country of significant geostrategic importance. Ethnic Turks form the majority of the population, followed by the Kurds. The predominant religion in Turkey is Islam and its official language is Turkish.
Turkey is the successor state to the Ottoman Empire. It is a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic, with an ancient and historical cultural heritage. Its political system was established in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Since then, Turkey has become increasingly integrated with the West through membership in organizations such as the Council of Europe, NATO, OECD, OSCE and the G-20 major economies.
Turkey began full membership negotiations with the European Union in 2005, having been an associate member of the European Economic Community since 1963 and having reached a customs union agreement in 1995. Turkey has also fostered close cultural, political, economic and industrial relations with the Eastern world, particularly with the Middle East and the Turkic states of Central Asia, through membership in organizations such as the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Economic Cooperation Organization. Turkey is classified as a developed country by the CIA and as a regional power by political scientists and economists worldwide.
The TCDD - Turkish State Railways possess 10,984 km of 1,435 mm gauge, of which 2,336 km are electrified (2005).
In 2004, Marmaray project started on a rail tunnel under the Bosphorus straits.
Between Istanbul and Ankara, a high speed railroad line is being constructed now next to the normal speed railroad which is being renovated. When finished, travel time between the two major cities will reduce from 6,5 hours to 3 hours and 10 minutes, using trains ordered from Spain that can reach up to 250 km/h. Construction of a high speed railroad line between Ankara and Konya is also soon to begin in order to connect the two cities with a direct line and reduce travel time from several hours to approximately one hour. Several other high speed and normal railroad projects are currently in the planning stage.
Cities with underground railway systems are Ankara, Istanbul, İzmir, Bursa, and Adana (under construction).