About Turkey

Turkey has seen a huge increase in growth with regards to overseas investment during the last 2/3 years.

Culture
Turkey has a very diverse culture that is a blend of various elements of the Oğuz Turkic, Ottoman, Western as well as Islamic cultures and traditions. This mix is a result of the encounter of Turks and their culture with those of the peoples who were in their path during their migration from Central Asia to the West. As Turkey successfully transformed from the religion-based former Ottoman Empire into a modern nation-state with a very strong separation of state and religion, an increase in the methods of artistic expression followed. During the first years of the republic, the government invested a large amount of resources into the fine arts, such as museums, theatres, and architecture. Because of different historical factors playing an important role in defining the modern Turkish identity, Turkish culture is a product of efforts to be "modern" and Western, combined with the necessity felt to maintain traditional religious and historical values.
Turkish music and literature form great examples of such a mix of cultural influences. Many schools of music are popular throughout Turkey, from "arabesque" to hip-hop genres, as a result of the interaction between the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic world along with Europe, and thus contributing to a blend of Central Asian Turkic, Islamic and European traditions in modern-day Turkish music. Turkish literature was heavily influenced by Arabic and, especially, Persian literature during most of the Ottoman era, though towards the end of the Ottoman Empire the effect of both Turkish folk and Western literary traditions became increasingly felt. The mix of cultural influences is dramatized, for example, in the form of the "new symbols [of] the clash and interlacing of cultures" enacted in the work of Orphan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize

in Literature.
Architectural elements found in Turkey are also testaments to the unique mix of traditions that have influenced the region over the centuries. In addition to the traditional Byzantine elements present in numerous parts of Turkey, many artifacts of the later Ottoman architecture, with its exquisite blend of local and Islamic traditions, are to be found throughout the country, as well as in many former territories of the Ottoman Empire. Since the 18th century, Turkish architecture has been increasingly influenced by Western styles and this can be particularly seen in Istanbul where buildings like the Blue Mosque and the Dolmabahçe Palace are juxtaposed next to numerous modern skyscrapers, all of them representing different traditions.

History
The most popular sport in Turkey by far is football, with certain professional and national matches drawing tens of millions of viewers on television. Nevertheless, other sports such as basketball and motor sports (following the inclusion of Istanbul Park on the Formula 1 racing calendar) have also become popular recently. The traditional Turkish national sport has been the Yağlı güreş (Oiled Wrestling) since the Ottoman times.
The Republic of Turkey was the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, following the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI Vahdettin by the new Republican assembly of Turkey in 1922. This new regime delivered the 'coup de grâce' to the Ottoman state which had been practically wiped away from the world stage following the First World War.
Atatürk, modern Turkey's founder and first President Turkish nationalists established modern Turkey as an outcome of the Turkish War of Independence, mostly on what was to become Turkish soil, as of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Turkish War of Independence saw the defeat of Greece in western Turkey (see Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)), the East Armenian state on the east (2 November 1920 Gümrü Treaty), Britain, France, and Georgia. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, and negotiated by İsmet Pasha (İnönü) on behalf of the Ankara government, established most of the modern boundaries of the country (except the province of Hatay, formerly the Syrian province of Alexandretta, which joined Turkey following a referendum organized in the province in 1939 after having gained its independence from France in 1938). The Treaty of Lausanne also led to the international recognization of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Republic of Turkey was founded as a nation-state on the French Revolutionary model.
The history of modern Turkey begins with the foundation of the republic on October 29, 1923 (the Republic was declared on January 20, 1921), with Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) as its first president. The government was formed from the Ankara-based revolutionary group, led by Atatürk. The second constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on April 20, 1924. For about the next 10 years, the country saw a steady process of secular Westernization through Atatürk's Reforms, which included the unification of education; the discontinuation of religious and other titles; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code modeled after Switzerland's and a penal code modeled after the Italian Penal Code; recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934; the language reform initiated by the newly founded Turkish Language Association; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet; the dress law (the wearing of a fez, a traditional Muslim hat, is outlawed); the law on family names; and many others.

There are several reason for this increase of overseas investors.

Prices
Even with the increase of property prices over the last few years, Turkey still has some of the lowest property prices in Europe, as a consequence, this provides the opportunities for it becoming the ideal choice for consideration of property investment/holiday homes, or relocations.

Green bar (lowest and highest temperatures Bodrum - Turkey)
Blue bar ( sea temperatures during summer periods in Bodrum-Turkey)
Turkey has applied to become a member of the EEC.
If their application for membership is successful this will see property prices soar. The potential result for those wise investors, would see them realizing a huge increase in the equity of there properties.

Turkey is now of course a major European holiday destination, this gives provides for an excellent opportunity to realize extremely good rental returns on apartments and holiday homes.