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The territory now known as Turkey has been continuously inhabited for longer than just about any other area of the world since the Neolithic era. Indeed Troy, known as Hisarlik today, was first settled during this period. However, it was not until much later until the 18th century BC that the first empire was formed in Anatolia under the Hittites, whose names for certain areas of the country in some cases remain intact today.

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Istanbul’s long history as a strategic city at the junction of competing civilisations had begun with the Roman decision to make Byzantine, as it was then known, the new capital of the Roman Empire and later the Byzantine Empire.

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The next four years saw turmoil for the now severely curtailed Ottoman state as patriotic forces sought to repel the occupying forces, a campaign which eventually succeeded at the end of 1922. After more than 600 years, Ottoman rule and with it the monarchy, came to an end.

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A number of military coups and instability over the division of Cyprus with Greece were the main tests to the still relatively new Turkish state in the 1960s and ‘70s. Economic reforms in the 1980s helped drastically modernise the country, leading to the high growth and development witnessed today. Political instability remains but Turkey’s proposed accession to the EU will undoubtedly lead to greater maturity and continuing economic progress.

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