TURKEY. The present area of Turkey-in-Europe and Tur key-in-Asia combined is 762,736 sq.km., or 294,50o sq.m., ex cluding 9,604 sq.km., of marshes and lakes. The population of this republic as estimated by the census of 1927 was over 13,600, 00o, and at the 1935 census was given as 16,200,694, an increase of over 23%.
The present frontier of Turkey in Europe runs from Aghios Stephanos on the Black Sea (near Cape Iniada) along the line of the small river Resvayiap due west to Kizil-Kilisse and the river Tundza. Hence it proceeds south-westwards to the river Maritsa which it crosses between Mustafa Pasha and Kedikeui. From here it turns sharply south and then south-eastwards and reaches the left bank of the Maritsa which it follows to the Aegean sea to the mouth of that river at Enos. This frontier was substituted at the Treaty of Lausanne for that fixed by the Treaty of Trianon which ran from Ormanli, just south of Midia, to Kallicrateia opposite Bilyiik Chesme on the Sea of Marmora. The whole of eastern Thrace was thus given back to Turkey and a substantial Turkey-in-Europe recreated. The frontier above described is against Bulgaria from Aghios Stephanos to a point south of the Maritsa at Hortakeui. From here to the Aegean it is against Greece. The main railway-line from Europe via Sofia to Constan tinople enters Turkey near Mustafa Pasha but passes over the Turkish border again just south of Adrianople into Greek terri tory which it traverses for some ten miles along the west bank of the Maritsa.
The chief land-frontier of Turkey however is in the east. From a point about 20 miles south-west of Batum it extends south east keeping Artvin in Turkish territory and leaving Akhaltsikh to Russia. It then passes in front of the Russo-Armenian towns of Alexandropol and Erivan, and turns due south at Mt. Ararat.
From here it passes the town of Bayezid leaving Urmia and Lake Urmia to Persia and running along a mountain ridge. Near the town of Amadia it turns due west along the Iraq frontier to Jezireh where the Arabian and Syrian frontiers begin. From Jezireh it goes north of Urfa and Marash to the Sea just east of Adana.
continuation of the foothills to the north-west, with the Bosporus depression intervening to let pass the accumulated waters of the Black Sea. Marmora is a hollow which has been filled up by these intervening waters and the Dardanelles a secondary trough through which they have slowly pushed their way.
On the west the foothills of the plateau are penetrated by two main river valleys the Gediz Chai (the ancient Hermus) and the Menderes (the Maeander) which each give a penetrative route eastwards for some hundred and fifty miles. The Sakaria, which runs roughly south from the Ismid region and the Kizil Irmak (the Halys) which runs south-westwards and then nearly com pletes a circle, are barriers to lateral traffic rather than passages for intrusion. In Thrace there is only one river of importance— the Ergene—which is a tributary of the Maritsa.
The surface character of the country corresponds closely with the climatic conditions. The whole of the coast for a depth of about 75 miles on an average (except on the south where it is slightly narrower) is forest or bush-land. Above the 2,500 foot level this vegetation ceases and the core of the plateau emerges. The forest region is densest on the north coast where the climate is essentially Pontic and the wooded strip is continued across the Bosporus into eastern Thrace along the Black Sea up to the Balkan Ridge. From a point near Mudania on the south coast of the Sea of Marmora to Batum on the Russo-Turkish border the country is homogeneous, being wild, thickly wooded and brought into cultivation only in narrow strips along the coast and, from Ismid to the Kastamuni district, in valleys parallel to the coast. Westwards the coast is cultivated extensively as far as the Troad, although a patch of wilder country intervenes between the Troad and Smyrna. But from Smyrna inland as far as the Sakaria and right down to the south coastline opposite Rhodes the bulk of the land is highly cultivated; it is here that the bulk both of the economic wealth and the population are derived. From Adalia to Mersina, however, and further east enormous ridge of Akseki Dagh and Bulgar Dagh repeats, but with more emphasis and with greater elevation, the forest and mountain features of the Pontic shore. East of Adana the same mountain ridge con tinues in a double massif towards Armenia and the uplands of Diarbekir. The plateau is thus rimmed round except on the west with a mountain and forest edge, in which the mountains often achieve a very much higher elevation than the central plateau.