Geographical position of Turkey: characteristics and assessment

The geographical position of Turkey brings to this country both benefits and numerous problems and difficulties. Located on the historical border of Europe and Asia, the state also occupies a border position at the junction of three "troubled" regions. This is the Caucasus, the Balkan Peninsula and the Middle East.

What are the features of Turkey's economic, geographical and geopolitical situation ? How can you characterize the modern relations of this country with its neighbors? All this will be discussed in this article.

Where is the state of Turkey?

The defeat in the First World War became fatal for the Ottoman Empire, which finally ceased to exist on the world map. As a result of this, a new state was formed in 1923, which will be discussed in this article.

It should be noted that the historical and geographical position of Turkey has always been profitable. The country is located on the continent of Eurasia, just on the border of its two parts - respectively, Europe and Asia. At the same time within the first of them is only 3% of the territory of the Turkish state. However, this small piece of land is home to about 20% of its population.

Turkey is one of the countries with dynamically developing economies. Today, almost 78 million people live here, and the total area of the state is 783.6 thousand square kilometers (36th in the world in size).

Geographical position of Turkey: briefly about the features

The state is located entirely within the eastern and northern hemisphere of the Earth, on the continent of Eurasia. Most of its territory, as already noted above, is geographically located in Asia.

The geographical position of Turkey, on the whole, is profitable. The country is at the point of intersection of historically important transport routes, which for more than one century connect the two "worlds" - Europe and Asia. Modern Turkey is trying to fully use this geographical feature, building on its territory quality railways and highways.

The territory of the country does not differ in compactness: the distance between its extreme western and eastern points is 1600 km, and between northern and southern - only 600. Turkey has an extensive outlet to two large seas: the Mediterranean and the Black. At the same time, the state controls the strategically important for the whole Europe Bosporus Strait. It is on its banks is the largest metropolis of the planet - Istanbul. This ancient city is also known to us from the history books like Constantinople.

Thus, the geographical position of Turkey has its own strengths and weaknesses. And they, in turn, determine the specifics of the foreign policy of this state.

Economic and geographical position of Turkey: the main features

On the territory of modern Turkey there was not one powerful empire (Byzantine, Ottoman). The modern state is located at the crossroads of important economic routes and has access to two important sea basins. All this creates excellent conditions for marketing their products to the world market.

The geographical position of Turkey is also advantageous because it borders on eight other states. They are Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Georgia and Israel. In addition, Russia's maritime neighbors are Russia, Ukraine and Cyprus.

The state of Turkey is an important geopolitical player on the world stage. On the one hand, it is part of a large Turkic-speaking region. On the other hand, Turkey is a member of the NATO military bloc and a candidate for EU membership.

Turkey's relations with neighboring countries

Turkey is trying to build its foreign policy on the principle of "no problems with neighbors." In part, it succeeds, despite the general turbulent situation in the region. The state seeks to establish friendly relations with all its neighbors (first and second order).

Not everything is smooth in Turkey with only three states. They are Armenia, Syria and Israel. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, these three states are conducting an aggressive or not entirely correct policy towards other nations. The region of the Turkish-Syrian border has been a particularly painful topic for the state for several years now.

The Turkish-Syrian conflict and its history

Autumn 2012 can be considered the beginning of the Turkish-Syrian border conflict. On October 3 shells fell on the territory of Turkey, which killed five of its citizens. The Syrian side accuses Turkey of financing the so-called Syrian rebels, whose goal is to overthrow the Assad regime.

At the end of 2012, at the NATO summit, it was decided to deploy six powerful Patriot missile-antiaircraft complexes on the Turkish-Syrian border, directed towards Syria. According to the Secretary General of the alliance Rasmussen, NATO is ready to protect Turkey from possible manifestations of external aggression.

In November 2015, there was another unpleasant incident on the Turkish-Syrian border: a Russian Su-24 bomber was shot down. According to the Turkish side, the plane violated the airspace of the state and did not react to warnings about it. This incident significantly "cooled" the once warm and friendly relations between Moscow and Ankara.

Finally...

Turkey is located on the border of two "worlds" - Europe and Asia. The geographical position of the country, in general, is profitable. The state controls the Bosporus Strait and is at the intersection of the most important transport routes for the two continents.

Turkey borders on eight countries. At the same time, relations with some of them are very difficult to call warm and friendly.