Roughly the size of Norway and Sweden

Turkey covers about 78m square kilometres (roughly the size of Sweden and Norway combined). It shares land borders with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Bulgaria and Greece. It also has more than 7,000 km of coastline. Turkey's highest mountain is Mount Ararat in the East at over 5,000m. Climates vary enormously across this vast country and it is one of the most fertile countries in the Middle East region, particularly in the East.

Enormous number of fauna species

Anatolia is one of the world's foremost sources of plants. Many disease-resistant forms of plants and crops have been exported including wheat to the US. Lentils, apricots, figs, chickpeas, almonds, hazelnuts and cherries are also native to Turkey. The number of species of fauna is staggering with over 80,000 (the rest of Europe has only 60,000) and includes the Anatolia leopard, monk seals, and other endemic species. The tiger's original homeland was in Turkey and it was indeed named after the Tigris River.

A wide variety of climates

The climate of Turkey varies significantly across its regions with coastal areas having cool rainy winters and hot moderately dry summers. Further East there is less rainfall. Mountains near the coast create a Continental climate in much of the interior, keeping Mediterranean influences at bay. Winters in the Eastern plateau can be very severe with temperatures dropping as low as -30° or even -40°C in mountainous areas.