Over the past 20 years, there have been major developments in the financial and social aspects of Turkey's economy, such as increases in employment and average income since 2000. A period of strong economic growth between 2002 and 2013 (except for 2009) was followed by a slowdown in growth in terms of USD-based nominal GDP figures between 2014 and 2020, especially during the 2018 Turkish currency and debt crisis, although the growth sustained in these years as well in terms of nominal GDP. Furthermore, there has been a steady recovery and a faster pace in growth in Turkey's GDP figures since 2021, which have reached their all-time highest values by the end of 2023. Growth-focused financial policies, such as the preference to keep interest rates as low as possible (dubbed Erdoganomics) have led to high inflation in recent years. (Full article...)
Image 12Ortaköy Mosque in the first quarter of the 20th century (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 13First Ziraat Bank Headquarters (1925–29) in Ankara designed by Giulio Mongeri is an important symbol of the First National Architectural Movement. (from Culture of Turkey)
Image 14View from Levent district in Istanbul. Istanbul's skyline has changed especially since the early 2000s. (from Culture of Turkey)
... that Cold War-era spy Hüseyin Yıldırım, sentenced to life without parole in the United States, was later pardoned and secretly extradited to Turkey, where he stayed only one day in prison? (April 2, 2014)
... that the broken top of the Aviation Martyrs' Monument in Istanbul is to symbolize the incomplete status of the flight missions? (September 21, 2010)
Ahmed Muhiddin Piri (c. 1465 – 1553), better known as Piri Reis (Turkish: Pîrî Reis or Hacı Ahmet Muhittin Pîrî Bey), was an Ottoman navigator, geographer and cartographer. He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye [tr] (Book of Navigation), a book that contains detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.
He gained fame as a cartographer when a small part of his first world map, prepared in 1513, was discovered in 1929 at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. His world map is the oldest known Turkish atlas showing the New World, and one of the oldest maps of America still existing anywhere (the oldest known surviving map of America is the map drawn by Juan de la Cosa in 1500). Piri Reis's map is centered on the Sahara at the latitude of the Tropic of Cancer. (Full article...)