Some henges at Göbekli Tepe were erected as far back as 9600 BC, predating those of Stonehenge, England, by over seven millennia.[1]

The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic until the Hellenistic period.[2] Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family.[3] Given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated.[4] The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least 40,000 years ago, and is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC.[5] The spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with the migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange.[6] Anatolian Neolithic farmers derived a significant portion of their ancestry from the Anatolian hunter-gatherers.[7]

Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made structure in the world, a temple dating to circa 9600 BC,[1] while Çatalhöyük is a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date.[8] Nevalı Çori was an early Neolithic settlement on the middle Euphrates, in Şanlıurfa. The Urfa Man statue is dated c. 9000 BC, to the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and is defined as "the oldest known naturalistic life-sized sculpture of a human".[9] It is considered to be contemporaneous with Göbekli Tepe. Troy was first settled in the Neolithic Age, with inhabitation continuing into the Byzantine period. Troy's Late Bronze Age layers are considered potential historical settings for the later legends of the Trojan War.[10][11][12]

 

The Sphinx Gate of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites

 

The Temple of Zeus in the ancient city of Aizanoi in Phrygia

The earliest recorded inhabitants of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians, non-Indo-European peoples who lived in Anatolia, respectively, as early as c. 2300 BC. Indo-European Hittites came to Anatolia and gradually absorbed the Hattians and Hurrians c. 2000–1700 BC. The first empire in the area was founded by the Hittites, from the 18th through the 13th centuries BC. The Assyrians conquered and settled parts of southeastern Turkey as early as 1950 BC[13] although they have remained a minority in the region.[14]

Following the collapse of the Hittite empire c. 1180 BC, the Phrygians, an Indo-European people, achieved ascendancy in Anatolia until their kingdom was destroyed by the Cimmerians in c. 695 BC.[15] The most powerful of Phrygia's successor states were Lydia, Caria and Lycia.

Assyrian king Shalmaneser I (1263–1234 BC) recorded a campaign in which he subdued the entire territory of "Uruatri".[16][17] Urartu re-emerged in Assyrian inscriptions in the 9th century BC.[18] Starting from 714 BC, the Urartu state began to decline, and finally dissolved in 590 BC, when it was conquered by the Medes.[19]

The city of Sardis served as the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia. As one of the seven churches of Asia, it was addressed in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament.[20] The Lydian Lion coins were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver. During the reign of King Croesus, the metallurgists of Sardis discovered the way of separating gold from silver, thereby producing both metals of a purity never known before.[21]

 

 

The gymnasium complex in Sardis, the capital of Lydia

Starting around 1200 BC, the coast of Anatolia was settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. Numerous important cities were founded by these colonists, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Halicarnassus, Pergamon, Aphrodisias, Smyrna (now İzmir) and Byzantium (now Istanbul), the latter founded by Greek colonists from Megara in c. 667 BC.[22] Some of the most prominent pre-Socratic philosophers lived in the city of Miletus. Thales of Miletus (c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC) is regarded as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition,[23][24] and is also historically recognized as the first individual known to have engaged in scientific philosophy.[25][26] Thales is often referred to as the "Father of Science".[27][28] In Miletus, he was followed by two other significant philosophers, Anaximander (c. 610 BC – c. 546 BC) and Anaximenes (c. 585 BC – c. 525 BC) (known collectively, to modern scholars, as the Milesian school). For several centuries prior to the first Persian invasion of Greece, perhaps the greatest and wealthiest city of the Greek world was Miletus, which founded more colonies than any other Greek city,[29] particularly in the Black Sea region. Diogenes the Cynic was one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy, born in an Ionian colony, Sinope, on the Black Sea coast of Anatolia, in 412 BC.[30]

 

The Sebasteion of Aphrodisias, a city named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty. In 2017, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.[31]

 

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built by the Romans in 114–117.[32] The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, built by king Croesus of Lydia in the 6th century BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.[33]

The first state that was called Armenia by the neighboring peoples was the state of the Armenian Orontid dynasty, which included parts of what is now eastern Turkey, beginning in the 6th century BC. In northwestern Turkey, the most significant tribal group in ancient Thrace was the Odyrisians, founded by Teres I.[34]

All of modern-day Turkey was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC.[35] The Greco-Persian Wars started when the Greek city states on the coast of Anatolia rebelled against Persian rule in 499 BC. Queen Artemisia I of the ancient Greek city-state of Halicarnassus, which was then within the Achaemenid satrapy of Caria, fought as an ally of Xerxes I, King of Persia, against the independent Greek city-states during the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC.[36][37]

Anatolia fell to Alexander the Great in 334 BC,[38] which led to increasing cultural homogeneity and Hellenization in the area.[2] Following Alexander's death in 323 BC, Anatolia was subsequently divided into a number of small Hellenistic kingdoms, all of which became part of the Roman Republic by the mid-1st century BC.[39] The process of Hellenization that began with Alexander's conquest accelerated under Roman rule, and by the early centuries of the Christian Era, the local Anatolian languages and cultures had become extinct, being largely replaced by ancient Greek language and culture.[40][41]

From the 1st century BC up to the 3rd century AD, large parts of modern-day Turkey were contested between the Romans and neighboring Parthians through the Roman-Parthian Wars.

Galatia was an ancient area in the highlands of central Anatolia inhabited by the Celts. The term "Galatians" came to be used by the Greeks for the three Celtic peoples of Anatolia: the Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii.[42][43] By the 1st century BC the Celts had become so Hellenized that some Greek writers called them Hellenogalatai.[44] Galatia was named after the Gauls from Thrace (cf. Tylis), who settled here and became a transient foreign tribe in the 3rd century BC, following the supposed Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC.

The Kingdom of Pontus was a Hellenistic kingdom, centered in the historical region of Pontus and ruled by the Mithridatic dynasty of Persian origin,[45][46][47][48] which may have been directly related to Darius the Great.[49][48] The kingdom was proclaimed by Mithridates I in 281 BC and lasted until its conquest by the Romans in 63 BC. The Kingdom of Pontus reached its largest extent under Mithridates VI the Great, who conquered Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos. After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic Wars, Pontus was defeated.

 

 

The Roman Empire at the time of Constantine the Great's death in 337. In 330, Constantinople (Istanbul) became the new Roman capital.

All ancient regions and territories corresponding to modern Turkey eventually became part of the Roman Empire, and many of them retained their historic names in classical antiquity as Roman provinces.

According to the Acts of Apostles,[50] Antioch (now Antakya), a city in southern Turkey, is where the followers of Jesus were first called "Christians". The city quickly became an important center of Christianity.[51][52] Apostle Paul of Tarsus traveled to Ephesus and stayed there, probably working as a tentmaker.[53] He is claimed to have performed miracles and organized missionary activity in other regions.[54] Paul left Ephesus after an attack from a local silversmith resulted in a pro-Artemis riot.[54]

 

The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul) was built by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian the Great in 532–537.[55]

 

The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in 555 under Justinian the Great, at its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

According to extrabiblical traditions, the Assumption of Mary took place in Ephesus, where Apostle John was also present. Irenaeus writes of "the church of Ephesus, founded by Paul, with John continuing with them until the times of Trajan."[56] While in Ephesus, Apostle John wrote the three epistles attributed to him. John was allegedly banished by the Roman authorities to the Greek island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. The Basilica of St. John near Ephesus, built by Justinian the Great in the 6th century, marks the burial site of Apostle John, while the nearby House of the Virgin Mary is accepted by the Catholic church as the place where Mary, mother of Jesus, lived the final days of her life, before her Assumption. Saint Nicholas, born in Patara, lived in nearby Myra (modern Demre) in Lycia.

In 123 CE, Roman emperor Hadrian traveled to Anatolia. Numerous monuments were erected for his arrival and he met his lover Antinous from Bithynia.[57] Hadrian focused on the Greek revival and built several temples and improved the cities. Cyzicus, Pergamon, Smyrna, Ephesus and Sardes were promoted as regional centres for the Imperial cult (neocoros) during this period.[58]

After defeating Licinius (the senior co-emperor (augustus) of the East in Nicomedia) at the Battle of Chrysopolis (Üsküdar) in 324 (thus bringing an end to the Tetrarchy system and becoming the sole emperor), Constantine the Great chose the nearby city of Byzantium across the Bosporus as the new capital of the Roman Empire and started rebuilding and expanding the city. He resided mostly in Nicomedia (modern İzmit) during the construction works in the next six years. In 330 he officially proclaimed it as the new Roman capital with the name New Rome (Nova Roma), but soon afterwards renamed it as Constantinople (Constantinopolis, modern Istanbul). Under Constantine, Christianity did not become the official religion of the state, but enjoyed imperial preference since he supported it with generous privileges.

 

 

Mosaic of Jesus at the Pammakaristos Church in Istanbul. Byzantine mosaics are the most celebrated form of Byzantine art.

Theodosius the Great made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 and was instrumental in establishing the Nicene Creed as the orthodox doctrine for Christianity with the First Council of Constantinople in 381.

Following the death of Theodosius the Great in 395 and the permanent division of the Roman Empire between his two sons, Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. This empire, which would later be branded by historians as the Byzantine Empire, ruled most of the territory of present-day Turkey until the Late Middle Ages;[59] although the eastern regions remained firmly in Sasanian hands until the 7th century. The frequent Byzantine-Sassanid Wars, a continuation of the centuries-long Roman-Persian Wars, took place between the 4th and 7th centuries.

Several ecumenical councils of the early Church were held in cities located in present-day Turkey, including the First Council of Nicaea (Iznik) in 325 (which resulted in the first uniform Christian doctrine, called the Nicene Creed), the First Council of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 381, the Council of Ephesus in 431, and the Council of Chalcedon (Kadıköy) in 451.[60] During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe.[61] Established in the Roman period, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is the oldest continuously active institution in Istanbul.[62] The First Council of Constantinople in 381 recognized that the rights of the bishop of Constantinople are equal to those of the bishop of Rome.[62]

 

 

The Great Seljuk Empire in 1092, upon the death of Malik Shah I[63]

The House of Seljuk originated from the Kınık branch of the Oghuz Turks who resided in the Yabgu Khaganate, on the periphery of the Muslim world, in the 9th century.[64] In the 10th century, the Seljuks started migrating from their ancestral homeland into Persia, which became the administrative core of the Great Seljuk Empire, after its foundation by Tughril.[65] In the latter half of the 11th century, the Seljuk Turks began penetrating into medieval Armenia and Anatolia. In 1071, the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert, starting the Turkification process in the area; the Turkish language and Islam were introduced to Anatolia. The slow transition from a predominantly Christian and Greek-speaking Anatolia to a predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking one was underway.

The Mevlevi Order of dervishes, established in Konya during the 13th century by Sufi poet Mevlânâ Rûmî, played a role in the Islamization of the diverse people of Anatolia.[66][67] Thus, alongside the Turkification of the territory, the culturally Persianized Seljuks set the basis for a Turko-Persian principal culture in Anatolia.[68][69][70]

 

 

 

İnce Minareli Medrese in Konya (left), Çifte Minareli Medrese in Erzurum (center) and Divriği Great Mosque and Hospital (right) are among the finest examples of Seljuk architecture.

The defeat of the Seljuk armies by the Mongols in 1243 caused the territories of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm (Anatolia) to slowly disintegrate into small Turkish principalities.[71]

In the early 14th century, the Ottoman Beylik founded by Osman I started expanding its territory and annexing the nearby Turkish beyliks (principalities) in Anatolia. Within a few decades, during the reign of Murad I (r. 1362–1389), the Ottoman State began expanding into the Balkans, eventually becoming known as the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans completed their conquest of the Byzantine Empire by capturing its capital, Constantinople, on 29 May 1453: their sultan and commander-in-chief Mehmed II thenceforth being known as Mehmed the Conqueror. Mehmed II further expanded the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and the Balkan peninsula. His expedition to Italy (1480–1481), commanded by Gedik Ahmed Pasha, began with the Ottoman invasion of Otranto and the nearby areas in Apulia. The invasion, which had the goal of establishing a foothold on the Italian peninsula for a subsequent conquest of Rome, started on 28 July 1480 and ended on 10 September 1481, four months after Mehmed II's death on 3 May 1481.[72]

Following the end of the Reconquista, which resulted in the expulsion of non-Christians (Jews and Muslims) from Iberia and southern Italy controlled by the Crowns of Castile and Aragon (and later by the Spanish Empire), a large number of Sephardic Jews and Andalusian Muslims emigrated to the Ottoman Empire during the reigns of Sultan Bayezid II and his successors, settling primarily in Istanbul, Izmir, Selanik, Bursa and Edirne.[73]

 

 

Topkapı and Dolmabahçe palaces in Istanbul were the primary residences of the Ottoman Sultans in 1465–1856[74] and 1856–1922,[75] respectively.

In 1514, Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) successfully expanded the empire's borders by defeating Shah Ismail I of the Safavid dynasty in the Battle of Chaldiran. In 1517, Selim I expanded Ottoman rule into Algeria and Egypt, and created a naval presence in the Red Sea. Subsequently, a contest started between the Ottoman and Portuguese empires to become the dominant sea power in the Indian Ocean, with a number of naval battles in the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean was perceived as a threat to the Ottoman monopoly over the ancient trade routes between East Asia and Western Europe. Despite the increasingly prominent European presence, the Ottoman Empire's trade with the east continued to flourish until the second half of the 18th century.[76]

The Ottoman Empire's power and prestige peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, who personally instituted major legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law.

The empire was often at odds with the Holy Roman Empire in its steady advance towards Central Europe through the Balkans and the southern part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.[77]

The Ottoman Navy contended with several Holy Leagues, such as those in 1538, 1571, 1684 and 1717 (composed primarily of Habsburg Spain, the Republic of Genoa, the Republic of Venice, the Knights of St. John, the Papal States, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Savoy), for the control of the Mediterranean Sea.

 

 

The second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 (the first siege was in 1529) initiated the Great Turkish War (1683–1699) between the Ottomans and the Holy League.

In the east, the Ottomans were often at war with Safavid Persia over conflicts between the 16th and 18th centuries.[78] The Ottoman wars with Persia continued as the Zand, Afsharid, and Qajar dynasties succeeded the Safavids in Iran, until the first half of the 19th century.

Even further east, there was an extension of the Habsburg-Ottoman conflict, in that the Ottomans also had to send soldiers to their farthest and easternmost vassal and territory, the Aceh Sultanate[79][80] in Southeast Asia, to defend it from European colonizers as well as the Latino invaders who had crossed from Latin America and had Christianized the formerly Muslim-dominated Philippines.[81]

From the 16th to the 20th centuries, the Ottoman Empire also fought twelve wars with the Russian Tsardom and Empire. These were initially about Ottoman territorial expansion and consolidation in southeastern and eastern Europe; but starting from the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), they became more about the survival of the Ottoman Empire, which had begun to lose its strategic territories on the northern Black Sea coast to the advancing Russians.

From the second half of the 18th century onwards, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. The Tanzimat reforms, initiated by Mahmud II in 1839, aimed to modernize the Ottoman state in line with the progress that had been made in Western Europe. The efforts of Midhat Pasha during the late Tanzimat era led the Ottoman constitutional movement of 1876, which introduced the First Constitutional Era, but these efforts proved to be inadequate in most fields, and failed to stop the dissolution of the empire.[82]

 

 

The Süleymaniye Mosque is the largest Ottoman imperial mosque in Istanbul, located on the Third Hill in the city's historical peninsula. The mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan.

As the empire gradually shrank in size, military power and wealth; especially after the Ottoman economic crisis and default in 1875[83] which led to uprisings in the Balkan provinces that culminated in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878); many Balkan Muslims migrated to the Empire's heartland in Anatolia,[84][85] along with the Circassians fleeing the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. According to some estimates, 800,000 Muslim Circassians died during the Circassian genocide in the territory of present-day Russia, the survivors of which sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire, mostly settling in the provinces of present-day Turkey. The decline of the Ottoman Empire led to a rise in nationalist sentiment among its various subject peoples, leading to increased ethnic tensions which occasionally burst into violence, such as the Hamidian massacres of Armenians, which claimed up to 300,000 lives.[86]

The loss of Rumelia (Ottoman territories in Europe) with the First Balkan War (1912–1913) was followed by the arrival of millions of Muslim refugees (muhacir) to Istanbul and Anatolia.[87] Historically, the Rumelia Eyalet and Anatolia Eyalet had formed the administrative core of the Ottoman Empire, with their governors titled Beylerbeyi participating in the Sultan's Divan, so the loss of all Balkan provinces beyond the Midye-Enez border line according to the London Conference of 1912–13 and the Treaty of London (1913) was a major shock for the Ottoman society and led to the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état. In the Second Balkan War (1913) the Ottomans managed to recover their former capital Edirne (Adrianople) and its surrounding areas in East Thrace, which was formalized with the Treaty of Constantinople (1913). The 1913 coup d'état effectively put the country under the control of the Three Pashas, making sultans Mehmed V and Mehmed VI largely symbolic figureheads with no real political power.

 

 

Monarchs of the Central Powers on a WWI postcard:Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany;Kaiser and King Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary;Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire;Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria

The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers and was ultimately defeated. The Ottomans successfully defended the Dardanelles strait during the Gallipoli campaign (1915–1916) and achieved initial victories against British forces in the first two years of the Mesopotamian campaign, such as the Siege of Kut (1915–1916); but the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) turned the tide against the Ottomans in the Middle East. In the Caucasus campaign, however, the Russian forces had the upper hand from the beginning, especially after the Battle of Sarikamish (1914–1915). Russian forces advanced into northeastern Anatolia and controlled the major cities there until retreating from World War I with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk following the Russian Revolution (1917). During the war, the empire's Armenian subjects were deported to Syria as part of the Armenian genocide. As a result, an estimated 600,000[88] to more than 1 million,[88] or up to 1.5 million[89][90][91] Armenians were killed. The Turkish government has refused to acknowledge[92][93] the events as genocide and states that Armenians were only "relocated" from the eastern war zone.[94] Genocidal campaigns were also committed against the empire's other minority groups such as the Assyrians and Greeks.[95][96][97]

Following the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, the victorious Allied Powers sought to partition the Ottoman state through the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres.[98]

 

 

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first President of the Turkish Republic, with the Liberal Republican Party leader Fethi Okyar (right) and Nermin Kırdar (Fethi Okyar's daughter) in Yalova, 13 August 1930

The occupation of Istanbul (1918) and İzmir (1919) by the Allies in the aftermath of World War I initiated the Turkish National Movement. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, a military commander who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) was waged with the aim of revoking the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920).[99]

In 1922, the Greek, Armenian and French armies had been expelled,[100] and the Turkish Provisional Government in Ankara, which had declared itself the legitimate government of the country on 23 April 1920, started to formalize the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. On 1 November 1922, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, thus ending 623 years of monarchical Ottoman rule.

The Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres,[98][99] led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed "Republic of Turkey" as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on 29 October 1923 in Ankara, the country's new capital.[101] The Lausanne Convention stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey.[102]

 

 

Eighteen female deputies joined the Turkish Parliament with the 1935 general elections. Turkish women gained the right to vote and to hold elected office as a mark of the far-reaching social changes initiated by Atatürk.[103]

Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first President and introduced many reforms. The reforms aimed to transform the old religion-based and multi-communal Ottoman constitutional monarchy into a Turkish nation state that would be governed as a parliamentary republic under a secular constitution.[104] With the Surname Law of 1934, the Turkish Parliament bestowed upon Mustafa Kemal the honorific surname "Atatürk" (Father Turk).[99]

The Montreux Convention (1936) restored Turkey's control over the Turkish Straits, including the right to militarize the coastlines of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits and the Sea of Marmara, and to block maritime traffic in wartime.[105]

After the establishment of the republic, some Kurdish and Zaza tribes, which were feudal (manorial) communities led by chieftains (agha) during the Ottoman era, became discontent about Atatürk's reforms aiming to modernize the country, such as secularism (the Sheikh Said rebellion, 1925)[106] and land reform (the Dersim rebellion, 1937–1938),[107] and staged armed revolts.

İsmet İnönü became the country's second president following Atatürk's death on 10 November 1938. In 1939, the Republic of Hatay voted in favor of joining Turkey with a referendum. Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the closing stages of the war on the side of the Allies on 23 February 1945. Later that year, Turkey became a charter member of the United Nations.[108] In 1950 Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe.

 

 

Roosevelt, İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference, 1943

The Democrat Party won the 1950, 1954 and 1957 general elections and remained in power for a decade, with Adnan Menderes as the prime minister and Celâl Bayar as the president. After fighting as part of the UN forces in the Korean War, Turkey joined NATO in 1952, becoming a bulwark against Soviet expansion into the Mediterranean. Turkey subsequently became a founding member of the OECD in 1961, and an associate member of the EEC in 1963.[109]

The country's transition to multi-party democracy was interrupted by military coups in 1960 and 1980, as well as by military memorandums in 1971 and 1997.[110][111] Between 1960 and the end of the 20th century, the prominent leaders in Turkish politics who achieved multiple election victories were Süleyman Demirel, Bülent Ecevit and Turgut Özal. Tansu Çiller became the first female prime minister of Turkey in 1993.

Following the liberalization of the economy in the 1980s, Turkey experienced stronger GDP growth and greater political stability in the last two decades of the 20th century; but inflation remained high throughout this period, and the GDP growth was interrupted by three economic crises in 1990, 1994 and 2000–2001.[112]

 

 

Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara, is visited by crowds during national holidays, such as Republic Day on 29 October.

Turkey applied for full membership of the EEC in 1987, joined the European Union Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005.[113][114] In a non-binding vote on 13 March 2019, the European Parliament called on the EU governments to suspend EU accession talks with Turkey, citing violations of human rights and the rule of law; but the negotiations, effectively on hold since 2018, remain active as of 2023.[115]

In 2014, Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won Turkey's first presidential election.[116] On 15 July 2016, an unsuccessful coup attempt tried to oust the government.[117]

With a referendum in 2017, the parliamentary republic has been replaced by an executive presidential system. The office of the prime minister has been abolished and its powers and duties have been transferred to the president. On the referendum day, while the voting was still underway, the Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey lifted a rule that required each ballot to have an official stamp.[118] The opposition parties have claimed that as many as 2.5 million ballots without a stamp were accepted as valid.[118]

In 2018, Erdoğan won the presidential election for a second term, which ends in 2023. The 2023 Turkish presidential election is scheduled to take place on 18 June 2023 as part of the 2023 general elections, alongside parliamentary elections. President Erdoğan has signalled that the election might be held early, on 14 May 2023.[119] According to Article 101 of the Constitution of Turkey: "A person can be elected as President maximum two times" (Turkish: "Bir kimse en fazla iki defa Cumhurbaşkanı seçilebilir").[120][121] No amendments have been made to this definition in Article 101 with the referendum in 2017.[120][121]

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