5. Central Anatolian Region / The Anatolian Plateau
Although termed a plateau, this region is actually quite diverse.
Stretching inland from the Aegean, it occupies the area between the
two zones of folded mountains, extending east to the point where
the two mountain ranges converge. Central Anatolian region
occupies 19% of the total area of Turkey with its 151.000 square
kilometers of land, it's the second largest region
of Turkey after Eastern Anatolia.
The plateau-like, arid highlands of Anatolia are considered the
heartland of the country. Akin to the steppes of the Soviet Union, the
region varies in altitude from 600 to 1,200 meters west to
east, averaging 500 meters in elevation. The two largest basins on
the plateau are the Konya Ovasi and the basin occupied by Tuz
Gölü (Salt Lake). Both are characterized by inland drainage.
Wooded areas are confined to the northwest and northeast, and
cultivation is restricted to the areas surrounding the
neighboring rivers where the valleys are sufficiently wide. Irrigation
is practiced wherever water is available; the deeply entrenched river
courses make it difficult to raise water to the
surrounding agricultural land, however. For the most part, the region
is bare and monotonous and is used for grazing.
6. Rainfall is limited and in Ankara amounts to less than 25 centimeters
annually. Wheat and barley are the most important crops, but the
yields are irregular, and crops fail in years of drought. 1/3 of the total
wheat of Turkey comes from this region. Other important crops in the
region are potatoes, beans, chickpeas and lentils.
Stock raising also is important, but overgrazing has caused soil
erosion in the plateau, and during the frequent summer dust storms a
fine yellow powder blows across the plains. In bad years, stock losses
are severe, and locusts occasionally ravage the eastern area in April
and May. An area of extreme heat and virtually no rainfall in
summer, the Anatolian plateau Continental climate is cold in winter
and receives heavy, lasting snows. Villages may be isolated by
severe snow storms.
Carpet weaving is another important income for small
villagers, especially in Cappadocia and Konya.
8. Central Anatolia’s uplands and plateau region is austere
compared to the mountainous or forested Turkish
regions or the more relaxed coastal plains. The land is
characterised by flat, fertile steppes and gentle rolling
hills, broken by occasional mountains such as the
snowcapped Mount Erciyes, an extinct volcano rising
3,917m (12,926ft) above sea level. The broad plains
make ideal agricultural land, and central Anatolia served
as a granary to both the Roman and Byzantine empires.
Its capture by the Turks in the 11th century deprived the
Byzantine Empire of its agricultural wealth and must
have contributed to its decline.
14. Black Sea region has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate
classification: Cfb); with high and evenly distributed rainfall
the year round. At the coast, summers are warm and
humid, and winters are cool and damp. The Black Sea
coast receives the greatest amount of precipitation and is
the only region of Turkey that receives high precipitation
throughout the year. The eastern part of that coast
averages 2,500 millimeters annually which is the highest
precipitation in the country. Snowfall is quite common
between the months of December and March, snowing for
a week or two, and it can be heavy once it snows.
The water temperature in the whole Turkish Black Sea
coast is always cool and fluctuates between 8° and 20°C
throughout the year
18. • Since most of the region is far from the sea, and has high
altitude, it has a harsh continental climate with long winters and
short summers. During the winter, it is very cold and
snowy, during summer the weather is cool in the highlands and
warm in the lowlands. The region has the lowest average
temperature of all Turkish regions, with -25°C. Although it can get
below -40°C. The summer average is about 20°C.
• The region's annual temperature difference is the highest in
Turkey.
• Some areas in the region have different microclimates. As an
example Iğdır (near Mount Ararat) has a milder climate.
• The region contains 11% percent of the total forested area
of Turkey. Oak and yellow pine trees form the majority of the
forests. It is rich in native plants and animals.
• The region has high potential for hydroelectric power.
21. • Southeastern Anatolia Region
has an area of 75.358 km² and
is the second smallest region
of Turkey. Southeastern
Anatolia Region has
asemi-arid continental
climate with very hot and dry
summers and cold and often
snowy winters.
22. The Mediterranean
Region
• The Mediterranean Region has
a Mediterranean climate at the
coast, with hot, dry summers
and mild to cool, wet winters
and a semi-aridcontinental
climate in the interior with
hot, dry summers and
cold, snowy winters.
23. Aegean Region
• The climate of the Aegean
Region has a Mediterranean
climate at the coast, with
hot, dry summers and mild to
cool, wet winters and a semi-
arid continental climate in the
interior with hot, dry summers
and cold, snowy winters.
24. Marmara Region
• The Marmara region has a
hybrid mediterranean climate/humid
subtropical climate on the Aegean
Sea coast and the south Marmara Sea
coast, an oceanic climate on the Black
Sea coast and a humid continental
climate in the interior. Summers are
warm to hot, humid and moderately
dry whereas winters are cold and wet
and sometimes snowy.
28. Turkey's flora
• Anatolia is one of the foremost world sources of plants
which have been cultivated for food, and the wild ancestors
of many plants which now provide staples for mankind still
grow here.
• Wild forms develop defense mechanisms against
predators, extremes of temperature, flooding, frost and
drought. Moreover, they are resistant to the diseases so
prevalent among cultivated plants. In addition, they
preserve the taste, fragrance, color, hardness and other
original characteristics which tend to be lost in the course of
cultivation. Today thanks to strides made in biotechnology it
is possible to transmit useful qualities of this kind to their
cultivars. Moreover, wild forms are a fundamental reference
source for the development of new cultivars. To put it
metaphorically, wild forms of cultivated species are like the
national archive of a country, or the core memory of a
computer.
29. • According to the principal international organizations active in
wildlife research and conservation-the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (I-UCN), the International Plant Genetic
Resource Institute (IPGRI) and the World Wildlife Found, there are
four gene centers in the world for cultivated plants used in
agriculture. Two of these are in the American continent and two in
Asia. In America, Mexico is the gene centre for maize and
tomatoes, and Peru for potatoes and beans, while in Asia China is
the gene centre for rice and millet, and the region of southwest
Asia covering most of Turkey and parts of Iran, Iraq. Syria and
Azerbaijan for wheat and barley. The most important of these
strategic agricultural plants is undoubtedly wheat, of which over
thirty wild species still grow in Turkey. The transmission of a
disease-resistant gene from a wild wheat form in Turkey to the
American cultivar has meant a saving of 50 million dollars a year
for the US economy alone
30. Turkey's flora
• Turkey is also the home of many other cultivated
plants, such as
chickpeas, lentils, apricots, almonds, figs, hazeln
uts, cherries and sour cherries. Their origin is
recorded in the Latin names for some of these
species, such as Ficus caria, meaning "fig
of Caria". Caria was an archaic civilization
of Anatolia in the southernAegean region.
Similarly the cherry's scientific name Cerasus
comes from the ancient name of its place of
origin, today the province
of Giresun on Turkey's Black Sea coast.
• Off the large number of ornamental flowers
cultivated from Turkish wild forms, we can cite
31. Turkey's flora
• As the flora, Turkey is divided into 3 main division and 5
subdivisions, these are;
• I) Euro-Siberian Flora Area
a) Kolsik Provence: includes central and western parts of
the Black Sea Region and some of Marmara Region.
b) Oksin Provence: includes eastern part of the Black Sea
Region.
• II) Mediterranean Flora Area
a) Western Anatolia: includes Thrace, southern part
of Marmara Region and Aegean Region.
b) Taurus Mountains
c) Amanos Mountains
• III) Irano-Tranian Flora Area
includes the rest of the country
32. Turkey's Fauna
• The diversity of fauna in Turkey is even greater than that of
wild plants. While the number of species throughout Europe
as a whole is around 60,000, in Turkeythey number over
80,000. If subspecies are also counted, then this number
rises to over a hundred thousand.
• As in the case of plants, Anatolia is the original homeland of
several species. For instance, the fallow deer now common
in Europe was introduced from Turkeyin the 17th century.
This species comes from the foothills of the Taurus
Mountains between Antalya and Adana. Another example is
the pheasant which comes from Samsun on Turkey's Black
Sea coast. The scientific name of this beautiful bird is
Phasianus colchicus, "Phasianus" being the ancient name
for the Kizilirmak river, and "colchicus" deriving from Colhia,
an ancient kingdom which stretched along the Black Sea
coast to the Caucasus.
33. • The domestic sheep is a descendant of the wild sheep, Ovis
musimon anatolica, which as the scientific name indicates
was a native of Anatolia. Few people are aware that
the Anatolia leopard is one of the largest of these graceful
cats, and that it was the species used in gladiator fights by
the Romans constructed as traps for these creatures can still
be seen scattered in the Taurus Mountains, and are known
locally as tiger-traps. Indeed, the tiger is another creature
whose original homeland was Anatolia, a little known fact
reflected in the name tiger itself , which comes from the Latin
name Felis Tigris, or Tigris cat after the Tigris river. The lions
which survive only in Hittite statues today were once another
member of the Anatolian fauna.
34. • Birds have taken advantage of Turkey's strategic position as a bridge
connecting Europe to Asia and Africa for thousands of years. Two of the
four main migration routes in the bio-geographic region known as the
year, in spring and autumn. In spring migratory birds fly northwards from
Africa to Asia and Europe, and in autumn they leave their breeding grounds
to fly south to Africa again. One of these migration routes leads south from
Hopa in northeast Turkey along the Çoruh river valley into Eastern
Anatolia, passing through Kahramanmaras and Antakya in Southeast
Turkey. Most of the birds which take this route through the Çoruh River
valley are birds of prey, and at around 250,000 they from the largest
migratory group of birds of prey in the world. However, the most spectacular
migration in the world is the flight of storks down
the Bosphorus in Istanbul in spring and autumn. Over a quarter million
storks fly in clouds over the city in the course of a few weeks. Some species
of birds of prey also migrate along the Bosphorus, a waterway which is not
only migratory route for birds but also for fish making their way between
the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea. It is this phenomenon which results in
unusually high catches, delighting fishermen and their customers alike.
35. • Despite the fact that Turkey is an ancient land, crossed, exploited and
sought over by a succession of peoples for millennia, there are still many
areas which have remained virtually untouched, enabling many rare species
of wildlife which have become endangered or extinct elsewhere to maintain
viable colonies here.Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean shores provide a
refuge for monk seals and loggerhead turtles, while is wetlands house
colonies of numerous endangered species, such as the Dalmatian
pelican, pygmy cormorant and the slender billed curlew, as well as
flamingoes, wild ducks and geese.
• Under the auspices of the Ministry of the Environment a program is
underway to project the last surviving colonies of monk
seal along Turkey's Mediterraneanand Aegean coasts, and in addition an
international project is being conducted within the framework of the Bern
and Barcelona conventions. Apart from a small colony of monk seals on the
shores of the Western Sahara on the Atlantic Ocean, the only remaining
colonies of this species are the eastern Mediterranean, the species having
been wiped out in the western areas. The fact that the species has survived
along Turkey's shores is due to the preservation of the natural environment
in many areas and low pollution levels.
36. • Further evidence that environmental conservation
along Turkey's coast is succeeding is the
continued existence of pine forest and long un-
spoilt beaches despite extensive construction in
recent years. Seals are seen to a lesser extent in
the Marmara and Black Sea, but they are most
common around Foça, near Izmir, on the Aegean
coast, a town whose name derives from the
ancient Phoenician for seal. A
local SealCommittee has beer set up in the
town, followed by another at Yalikavak
near Bodrum further to the south.
37. • The total number of monk seals in the world is between 300-
400, fifty of which live in Turkish waters.
• Other endangered species include turtles which lay their eggs in
the long sandy beaches of the Mediterranean. Two species breed
in Turkey, where efforts to protect them have been extremely
successful. A tourism development project at Köycegiz has been
scrapped to preserve the breeding grounds of Caretta
Caretta, and the lake and marshes of Köycegiz declared an
Specially Protected Area. These measures were received with a
standing ovation by the Standing Committee of Bern Convention
of the Council of Europe in 1989, and cited as an example for
other countries to follow. Studies of the turtles along all Turkey's
shores have been launched, and seventeen sand beaches of
foremost importance as breeding grounds for turtles are kept
under constant observation by the Turtle Preservation Committee.
The Ministry of the Environment's Authority of Specially Protected
Areas is in charge of protecting the Belek area, and the Ministry of
Forestry is responsible for the Yumurtalik and Akyatan wetlands.
