History

A white patrol boat with a black deck edge and an orange and black stripe on its bow, the words Sahil Güvenlik Coast Guard on its cabin and the number 907 on the bow, moored at a quay beside a grey building with a green hill and a few houses behind, with a Turkish flag at the stern

Turkey’s Ministry of Interior: What It Does

What Türkiye’s Ministry of Interior does, who heads it, and three bodies under it: the Coast Guard, population...

A small stream drops over a mossy stone weir between banks of fallen red-brown beech leaves and green ferns

Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry: What It Does

Food complaints, forest fires, national parks, pets at the border and farm questions: the ministry's lines, rules and...

19 min read

Blue, green and yellow glazed tiles in rows of pointed-arch panels on the outer wall of the Dome of the Rock, with a window grille at the left and a dark blue sky over the top

Jerusalem under the Ottomans

What the Ottomans built and ran in Jerusalem, 1517–1917: Süleyman’s walls, water, endowed soup kitchens and courts, and...

16 min read

A worn old Uşak rug in blue and red: a large eight-pointed star in the middle, smaller stars and leaf shapes around it and a narrow border at the edge

Culture

Anatolian Rugs: Halı, Kilim, Motifs and Museums in Turkey

Halı (knotted) and kilim (flat-woven): the knot, the weaving places, what a few motifs mean and where to...

19 min read

A dark grey bust of a person in round glasses with short hair, from the chest up, on a pale stone pedestal under green trees and beside a white lamp post

Culture

Halide Edip Adıvar: Life, Books and Anadolu Ajansı

Halide Edip Adıvar’s life in dated steps, her books by year, her part in founding Anadolu Ajansı in...

27 min read

The History of the Turkish Gendarmerie: Tradition Meets High-Tech

When you leave Istanbul's city limits, you enter the jurisdiction of the Jandarma. Covering 93% of Turkey's landmass,...

6 min read

A pale pink house with dark wooden shutters, an outside stair and a leafy tree at its side, seen from the garden

Atatürk’s Early Life: From Selanik to the First World War

Mustafa Kemal’s life from his birth in Selanik in 1881 to 1918: family, schools, first postings, Trablusgarp, the...

20 min read

Autochrome photograph of the Bâbıâli, a stone gateway with a wide curved roof and a double wooden door, in a high wall; overhead tram wires cross the sky

Ottoman Empire and the United States: Treaty and Envoys

How the Ottoman Empire and the United States dealt with each other: the 1830 treaty, the legation, the...

24 min read

Osman I in an Ottoman miniature: a bearded man in a tall white turban with a red patch, a red collar over a dark patterned coat, against a pale blue tiled background

Osman I, Ottoman Founder: What the Sources Say

Who Osman I was in the sources that name him, what a Byzantine historian and two deeds record,...

24 min read

Sepia studio portrait of Sultan Abdülaziz in a fez: a heavy man with a full grey beard in a dark buttoned coat with a star-shaped decoration, looking slightly to the left

Sultan Abdülaziz: His Reign, His Fleet and How It Ended

Abdülaziz ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1861 to 1876: railways, 20 ironclads, a journey to Europe, and why...

15 min read

A tall stone minaret with turquoise bands, and beside it the pointed turquoise dome called the Green Dome, over grey lead domes under a clear blue sky

Culture

Rumi (Mevlânâ): Life, Works, the Sema and Konya

Rumi, or Mevlânâ Celâleddîn-i Rûmî: his life in dated steps, what he wrote, the Mevlevi order, the sema...

22 min read

Illustration: a thick oxblood hardback volume with a gold crescent and star on its cover and a teal silk ribbon, standing on a wooden reading lectern in a sunlit library with shelves of books and an arched window

The Turkish Constitution: What It Says and How It Changes

The Turkish Constitution since 1982: its parts, who holds power, what cannot change, how it is amended and...

17 min read

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Turkey’s Ministry of Interior: What It Does

Turkey’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry: What It Does

Jerusalem under the Ottomans

Anatolian Rugs: Halı, Kilim, Motifs and Museums in Turkey

Halide Edip Adıvar: Life, Books and Anadolu Ajansı

The History of the Turkish Gendarmerie: Tradition Meets High-Tech

Atatürk’s Early Life: From Selanik to the First World War

Ottoman Empire and the United States: Treaty and Envoys

Osman I, Ottoman Founder: What the Sources Say

Sultan Abdülaziz: His Reign, His Fleet and How It Ended

Rumi (Mevlânâ): Life, Works, the Sema and Konya

The Turkish Constitution: What It Says and How It Changes