ANATOLIA plateau of Anatolia, which is buttressed on the north and on the south by the Pontic and Taurus ranges respectively, extends from the /Egean eastwards to the Armenian knot. To the west of the Anti-Taurus the plateau forms a great central plain, of which the elevation is between 2,500 and 3,000 feet ; but to the east the land, besides increasing in height, becomes more irregular in contour, and the region consists of elevated plains, separated by the numerous ranges which finally converge in the highlands of Armenia. The mountains which border the plateau approach closely to the sea and leave little room for the formation of coastal plains, the most important of which are those of the Kizil and the Kalkid in the north, and of Pamphylia and Cilicia in the south. To the west the slope of the land is more gentle, and many broad valleys open out upon the /Egean, and offer the natural routes for penetration into the interior.
On the coastal regions, which include both the plains and the lower slopes of the hills, the climate is typically Mediterranean.
At Smyrna, for example, the mean temperature for January is 46° F. and for July 80° F. On the plateau, the summers are hot and the winters very cold, especially in the east, where snow lies for many months in the year. The rainfall, which occurs during the winter half of the year, is heaviest in the coastal dis tricts, and is generally between 20 and 30 inches, except along the eastern part of the Black Sea littoral, where it exceeds the latter amount. On the plateau the precipitation is almost everywhere less than 20 inches, and over a great part of Western Anatolia it is less than 10 inches.
For the division of the country into natural regions, it is most important to distinguish between the coastal plains and the lower slopes of the plateau on the one hand, and the plateau on the other.