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Latest comment: 11 years ago23 comments3 people in discussion
So on the suggestion of Vidimian, I'm moving the discussion here from Talk:Aegean Turkey think that we should talk about the macro-regions of Turkey. Currently, the division follows roughly the Turkish regional geoscheme, however with alterations where editors find it appropriate (for example including the lest touristy parts of the Inland Aegean region in Central Anatolia). My suggestion is that for consistency and easy of use, we ought to keep the Macro-regions basically the same as the Turkish geoscheme, while attempting to make the sub-regions coherently reflect areas that a tourist is likely to visit together.
There's many ways to divide Turkey into macro-regions, for example as Vidimian noted: "Lonely Planet guide to Turkey, 2007 edition, puts everything from Bursa to Denizli in a region named 'Western Anatolia' (distinct from the Marmara, Aegean, Mediterranean, or Central Anatolia regions), while Rough Guide to Turkey, 2010 edition, puts Kütahya into 'North Central Anatolia', and Afyon into 'South Central Anatolia'."
As such, until the software is able to support multiple hierarchies, I maintain that the best thing to do is to try to keep the macro-regions consistent with the traditional geoscheme. Since it's unlikely that a tourist is going to try to see all of Aegean Turkey, or all of "Western Anatolia" as defined by Lonely Planet, but is rather likely to attempt to travel along the "Turkish Riviera" or "see what I can on a day trip from Izmir/Antalya/Bodrum." We can easily try to that with the smaller regions, but with the larger regions, there's no clearly obvious way to do it, as the difference in guidebooks demonstrates (guidebooks published in Turkey usually seem to use the the traditional geoscheme). I don't see why using the seven traditional regions as "buckets" is worse than any other division, and it has the clear advantage of corresponding with the way Turkish travel agents, government agencies, and the supplementary articles on Wikipedia all divide things. —Quintucket (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Could you provide some maps so we can see a side-by-side comparison of our division and the geoscheme you refer to. I'm not sure what changes exactly are being proposed. I don't think we have any obligation to use official divisions, rather than our own designed for our own purposes, but if the Turkish geoscheme works better for our purposes, then we should use it. --PeterTalk23:35, 15 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
I've included the map from the discussion above, though it appears that the Datça Peninsula is included as Med Turkey whereas it's Aegean in this map. I've also included a map of the census-defined regions (Wikipedia has some, but it does them by province, which makes a serious difference in the Marmara/Aegean and Aegean/Med boundaries.
The main differences are that Maraş was felt to be insufficiently "Mediterranean" and grouped with southeastern Turkey, while Kütahya, Uşak and Afyon were felt to be insufficiently "Aegean" and lumped with Central Anatolia.
I'd argue with the logic of both these points. Hatay has far more in common with Maraş—in terms of both culture/history, and in terms of the kinds of travelers it will attract—than it does with Antalya. It also has a bit in common with Antep, which in turn has little in common with th rest of "Southeastern Turkey" other than its climate, and the (eather important for our purposes) fact that travelers to Antep are also likely to travel around the rest of Southeastern Turkey (though not Maraş.which isn't Southeastern Turkey and doesn't have much to see), since getting in certain sites there is a popular itinerary.
I think the main defining feature here is water: Aegean is the name of a sea, and in Kütahya, you will hardly remember it; Hatay, no matter how much its culture might be similar to the Southeast (in fact, I'd say Hatay is unique in Turkey), still has long Med beaches, whereas Maraş has not. (There could be an arguement for taking Lakes District out of Med Turkey here, instead of putting Maraş in.)
As for what in common binds Kütahya and Sivas point: both are on the tree-scarce steppes; and likewise both Antalya and Hatay is on the Mediterranean coast. In these kind of situations, I think it's better to create subregion articles, where the places that are nearer to each other go into the same sub-regions (so, while in the same region, Kütahya and Sivas don't go into the same sub-region), instead of taking some cities out and putting them into a region where they make little sense.
And Eskişehir has much more in common with Kütahya, Afyon, and Uşak, than these latter have in common with the Aegean: a walk through the old districts of Eskişehir and Kütahya will, at least to amateur eyes, provide a sight of a very similar architecture; the countryside of these four provinces is littered with Phrygian ruins, temples, and other artefacts; they have very extensive transportation links between them (bus and train), which would enable the traveller to have Eskişehir as a base and, with the exception of distant Uşak, visit others as a day trip (this might be done with Kütahya as a base, too, I guess). And a last note on Kütahya and Afyon: the locals of these cities are very conservative, which puts them in common with most of the rest of Central Anatolia, while the natives of the Aegean usually take pride in their more progressive views.
As Peter noted above, we don't have to follow the (semi-)official regional divisions, and I think what we have currently on at least the Central Anatolia/Aegean border is what might possibly best serve the traveller. Vidimian (talk) 08:40, 16 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Apologies for the long delay (and the long response), I've been traveling (though I'm back in Antep now). First, I'd just like to note that if we're talking about architecture, ruins, and culture, Maraş has the colorful buildings and Hittite ruins of Central Anatolia and Cilicia, and the broad palm-lined streets I associate with Med Turkey, as opposed to the gray/brown buildings, Syrian ruins, and narrow side-streets I associate with the Southeast. I have no comment on the Lakes District, since I haven't been there, though I do note that it's very under-developed, which means it's probably not a popular site to visit from Antalya.
Now back to inland Western Anatolia. There's also extensive bus and train links between Izmir and the inland provinces of the Aegean region (I believe the train goes to the capitals of all three provinces, as well as Denizli). Like I said, I don't believe that there's any draw to these regions for most tourists from either Izmir or Central Anatolia (tourists to Central Anatolia mainly visit Konya, Ankara, Nevşehir (often using Kayseri as a base), and sometimes Sivas and Hattusa. You may be right that the AKU provinces (as I'll refer to them from now on) are sometimes visited from Eskişehir, and that Eski has more in common with the AKU provinces (or at least Afyon and Kütahya, my impression was that Uşak was rather liberal) than they do with Izmir; since I haven't been yet, I'll take your word on that. However Eskişehir is a bit of an outlier from the rest of Central Anatolia, geographically, economically, and culturally lying as it does between Istanbul, Bursa, and Ankara (another Central Anatolian outlier).
However I feel like your argument stems from the (likely correct) assumption that the main reason people would go to the Mediterranean or Aegean regions is to go to the beach, with a few day-trips to nearby ruins. While that may indeed be true, the assumption then is that readers not only don't want to visit places they can't day-trip to from the beach, but also that including such areas will confuse them. That then would seem to be an argument for excluding Adana from the region, which despite its proximity to Mersin, travelers (at least the ones I met, seem to use only as a jumping-off point for the Southeast or Hatay. It also seems like a good reason to exclude Hatay, whose coastline is mainly used by Turks from the Southeast, while travelers are mainly there to see Antioch, the Armenian village (whose name I forget), and before the war, often to continue into Syria. That is while the main draws of Mersin, Antalya, Muğla and Aydın is the beaches, the main draw of Hatay is the history, and the main draw of Adana is as a base for adventures eastwards. Adana and Hatay may have beaches, but travelers don't visit them for the beaches, at least not any I've met. (However this of course splits Adana from Tarsus and Mersin, with which it is intimately connected.)
As for culture, my point about the culture of Maraş and Hatay was that culture shouldn't necessarily determine the regions. Ankara after all is far more liberal than most of Central Anatolia, and I'd argue that there's no large or mid-sized city in Turkey as conservative as Konya (even people in Antep take pride in being not as conservative as Konya). If Afyon and Kütahya are conservative, it's quite possibly because of their smallness and isolation, rather than their location. After all, Alaşehir is pretty conservative too despite being quite close to Izmir, simply because it's a rural farming town. Edremit also felt pretty conservative to me, despite being on the Aegean coast, with a shocking number of women in headscarfs, conservative requirements for bathing gear and segregated swimming areas in the thermal spas (I ultimately didn't go into the spas, since I found wearing a bathing cap and segregated swimming to be distasteful). However it's still a resort area (even if one that caters mainly to Turks), and a place that gets tourists on account of its location.
While I still disagree with trying to make our own regions (like I said, I feel like for travelers the macro-regions are far less important than the sub-regions), if we do want to do that. I have a couple of suggestions. First, I'm serious about Adana and Hatay fitting in better for traveler's purposes (though certainly not cultural ones in the case of Adana) with Southeastern Turkey. Second, I'd suggest that Istanbul merits a macro-region of it's own (or possibly with Izmit and Yalova). It's larger than all of Turkey's other "large" cities combined (Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, and Adana), and travelers to Istanbul often stay in Istanbul. While they might make trips to Thrace, Yalova, or Bursa, those regions are rather different in terms of their attractions (people I know who go to Thrace, for example mainly go for hiking and the Selimiye complex in Edirne). Third, I feel like the Lonely Planet notion of grouping Bursa with Eski and the AKU provinces might have some merit (and that we might group Eski, AKU, and the Lakes district as its own macro-region, rather than lumping with Central Anatolia). Bursa is a shockingly conservative city for its size, and though it's more visited than Eski or the AKU provinces, I don't know too many people who day-trip there from Istanbul, despite the ease of reaching it. Alternatively, Bursa, and northern Balıkesir/Çanakkale could be grouped together with Thrace under Western Marmara, as places people go mainly for outdoor activities like hiking and skiing, Ottoman architecture, and ruins. Oh, and finally Siirt and Sirnak, which aren't part of typical itineraries in Southeastern Anatolia, and partly in Eastern Anatolia anyways, might be better grouped with that region. Regards, —Quintucket (talk) 14:49, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Hey, thanks for the input. And no need to be sorry for being late nor should you need to rush — we're all more or less travellers here, so discussions usually take longer to conclude here than, say, Wikipedia.
The discussion seems like going towards an extensive re-shuffling of Turkish regions. So as far as I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong), you are proposing the following changes to the current regions:
Seperate Adana, and Hatay from Med and put them in the Southeast. (If so, what would the name for the proposed region be? "Cilicia and the Southeast" is the best I could think of.) Sometime back in 2010, I decided to give the regional hierarchy of Med Turkey an overhaul, and created a region article for the mountainous western part of Mersin Province, and put the rest into Cilician Plains (more about this on Talk:Mediterranean Turkey). If we keep this divide, then the part with beaches and Roman ruins (i.e., Erdemli, Silifke, and Anamur) go together with Antalya, while Mersin, together with Tarsus, don't get divided from Adana, and go together into this enlarged Southeast region. Or, we could just seperate Med coast into two: Lycia and Antalya region (both overran by tourists) go into a region (presumably, something like "Western Mediterranean"?) and decidedly less travelled beaches of Mersin Province, along with Adana, Hatay, (and perhaps Maraş), into another region ("Eastern Mediterranean"?). And yet another idea: Mersin, Tarsus, Adana, Maraş, Hatay, and perhaps Antep into a region of their own (name?), and keep the rest (including Silifke, Erdemli, etc) in Med Turkey. (But then, would it be alright to have Antep in a seperate region from Adıyaman, and Urfa?)
Eskişehir, AKU, and Lakes District into a region of their own. This seems like a good idea. And seperating Afyon from Lakes District possibly wasn't a good idea in the first place, as the actual conglomeration of lakes start just south of Afyon (and this region should include the western bits of Konya Province around Lakes Beyşehir and Akşehir). Seperating Bursa from Marmara might not be an idea that well, as that would leave Balıkesir, etc, as a leftover with no connection to the rest of the region.
"Western Marmara" for Bursa. This might also not be a good idea, as Bursa lies nowhere near west of that particular region.
Istanbul as its own region. Not sure about this. What would you name the region that is the Marmara Region minus Istanbul? And Istanbul already has a container region for the city and the immediate surroundings, and I can't see why it would be a problem. (While many capital/largest/dominant cities have their own regions in Wikivoyage, they usually have a mediate region between themselves and the country article, such as UK -> England -> London, or Russia -> Central Russia -> Moscow).
Şırnak and Siirt out of SE and into the East. I'm not sure about this either. The western bits of Şırnak is part of the ancient Assyrian homeland (along with Mardin), possibly with those distinctive belfries all around the villages awaiting travellers to visit (and might do so for a long time to come), and Siirt has a large native Arab population, which binds it together with Hasankeyf in this aspect. Commercial paper guidebooks have other ideas to divide SE and the East, though: They usually put everything south of a line, say, from north of Malatya to north of Van into a region, and put the rest of Eastern Anatolia in another one (this might be accomplished through a set of a couple or three subregion articles for Eastern Anatolia just as well though—and I have an idea on this, too).
And while we're at this, another idea on redefining the regions: The aforementioned guidebooks above both consider south of Çanakkale (including the city itself) as a part of their Northern Aegean guides. Should we follow the same convention here as well? I guess not many people think of "Marmara" when they hear Troy or Bozcaada, and Aegean might just fit it.
My knowledge of Turkey is not comprehensive, but I'll comment on what I can. I definitely like Eskişehir, AKU, and Lakes District, especially since it flattens the hierarchy a bit. I don't think Istanbul needs its own region—a big part of the regions, cities, ODs lists is just navigation, and Istanbul is already heavily linked to (including in the lede)—so readers won't have to dig through region articles to get to it. It's also shaded heavily on the map, which some day might anyways be clickable. --PeterTalk20:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Roughly my first proposalRoughly my second proposalWhat I think Vidimian's suggesting
I've made three maps (quickly in the GIMP) to demonstrate my two suggestions, roughly, as well as what I think V's proposing. (Obviously if we're making our own regions, Amasya and Tokat belong with places like Çorum and Yozgat rather than Samsun and Sinope.) In the event of making Istanbul it's own region I'd also include Yalova and Izmit (which basically form one large metro area with Istanbul) with Istanbul, Sakarya with the Black Sea, and Bilecik with Western Anatolia. In the proposal where we include Bursa with the Western Anatolia region, I'd put either all of Çanakkale or the Asian part and the islands, in with the Aegean. I'll admit I don't like either of these proposals when I put them on paper, mostly because even though Yalova and Izmit are very much part of the Istanbul metro area, it still feels weird, since tourists probably make day trips to those regions less often than they do to Bursa (of course the same could be said of all of Istanbul's suburbs), but I couldn't think what else to do with them.
As for including all of Asian Çanakkale with the Aegean, I know that the Ayvacik is indeed already considered Aegean. I wouldn't put Çanakkale, Troy, and the Islands in the Aegean region though unless we're making Thrace its own region. The straights of course connect the Aegean and Marmara, and while they're near the Aegean, they're not actually on it.
While it does somewhat bother me to split the Adana-Tarsus-Mersin corridor, the fact remains that Mersin province is to some degree a popular beach resort (though possibly less so among foreigners than Turks), while Adana is not. And while tourists often take day trips to Tarsus from Mersin, they don't usually go to Adana. While I don't like to split metro areas, I already supported splitting Aydin out of Izmir's sphere (admittedly, at the sub-regional level), favoring the logic of tourists who go to resorts in Kuşadası and Didim over the local commuters and day-trippers from Izmir. I'd propose calling the Macro-region "South and Southeastern Turkey" or just "Southeastern Turkey." (While Adana's indisputably not actually in the southeast, it makes things simpler, since expats I meet tend to associate it more with Antep than Antalya.) —Quintucket (talk) 21:30, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
While sticking Sakarya Province to Black Sea Region might be a good idea, Istanbul-Kocaeli/İzmit-Yalova region indeed looks weird, and "unbalanced" (especially in the first map, when there are two small regions up on that corner of the country, and some of the rest of the regions are enormous). I completely agree re: Amasya and Tokat, though.
South and the Southeast detached from each other
...and coastal Çanakkale added to Aegean
I've made a few alterations to the third map:
Seperate regions for Southern Turkey (from Mersin in the west to Euphrates in the east—basically Cilician Plains + Maraş area + the plains around Antep) and Southeastern Turkey/Anatolia. The more I think about this, more it makes sense. When we have a region extending from Adana all the way to Şırnak, what can we write in an article that is general enough for such a diverse and large area? "Understand", "Get in", "Talk", "Eat", "Stay safe", ... parts would all have explanations in the lines of "if you are west of Euphrates, this, and on the east of the river, that". But with seperate regions, we can really have some good and concise travel writing. Also Adana-Tarsus-Mersin stay together, as do the beaches of Anamur and Silifke with Antalya. The only problem I see with this grouping is where should Adıyaman really go? Together with Urfa to Southeast, or together with Antep to South?
Attach the southern panhandle of Karaman to Med Turkey. This area is dominated by the Taurus Mountains, so is linked to the Med instead of the steppes of Central Anatolia.
Extend the region which includes the lakes towards east into Konya Province, as that's the location of some important lakes (none of which except Lake Beyşehir isn't shown on the map).
Attach Bayburt to Eastern Anatolia, rather than Black Sea—I frankly don't know why we decided to list this mountain city in the Black Sea Region in the first place.
On the second map, in addition to the above alterations, it shows how it would look like if the Aegean coasts of Çanakkale Province were added to Aegean Turkey. I'm not insistent on this, though, just a thought. Vidimian (talk) 23:42, 18 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Vidimian, that looks like a reasonable map. I've been thinking about how drastically different Adana is from the Southeast in terms of the "Understand" and "Respect" sections, and you're right that "Stay Safe" probably applies too. One thing about Gaziantep is that while the western part of the province is incorporated into metro-Adana, while eastern Antep, including the city, is sort of it's own thing, being a Turkish city in a predominately Kurdish/Arabic part of Turkey, and being rather more liberal than the rest of the Southeast. While it is a jumping-off point to the southeast, as is Antep, it's not one of the main draws. So the city of Antep I think could go either way.
As for Adiyaman, while it's culturally and economically closer to Antep (actually in some ways, also to Central Anatolia) than to Kurdistan, the fact that Mount Nemrut is the main draw of the region marks it as one of the main places people like to visit in the Southeast (Along with the Mardin-Hassankeyf corridor, Urfa, and Diyarbakir).
As for Çanakkale, I think that including the whole Aegean coast looks a bit weird. Actually, even just the Edremit coast is a bit weird, but one thing I'll note about the Marmara region is that it has a good number of ferries throughout, whereas except in Izmir, I don't think there's public ferries for internal destinations in the whole rest of Turkey (there's ferries going to the Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, and North Cyprus, but not internally, and the international ferries are generally longer and cost far more).
One more thing: is there a reason you include Bayburt in Eastern Anatolia, but not Gümüşhane? I haven't been to either, so I don't know, but it's not a place I'd think to visit from the Black Sea, and according to Wikipedia it has a continental climate, like Eastern Turkey. —Quintucket (talk) 19:30, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Points taken on Adıyaman and Çanakkale. Let's keep Antep together with Adana, just for the fact that otherwise we run the risk of having that region a little bit too small, if not for anything else. I don't know if I'm needlessly leaning heavily towards historic/cultural landscape, but the only reason for me to keep Gümüşhane in Black Sea Region is the ruins of Santa, which used to be home to a Pontic Greek population up to the 20th century, which links it with the coastal cities such as Trabzon. Bayburt, on the other hand, seems like it has always been in the zone of influence of Erzurum (see, for example, "administrative divisions" section of the Wikipedia article for the Ottoman vilayet of Erzurum; whereas Gümüşhane was a sanjak of the vilayet of Trebizond). However, having been to neither myself either, I wouldn't mind too much if both are grouped into Eastern Anatolia.
So, provided there are not any more disagreements, this seems like a consensus, so after waiting for some time to see if anyone else would have a different idea, we can implement the changes, I'd say. Vidimian (talk) 21:38, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Fair enough on Gümüşhane. I think historical/cultural landscape certainly should play a part (though I don't know if people from Gümüşhane are considered Karadeniz/Laz people by the Turks), especially if it's a destination that isn't one of the main touristy sites.
Unless Peter wants to do it (since he made the original), in a week or so I'll try to make a proper map based on Turkey regions map.svg with the new regions and upload it to "File:Turkey regions updated.svg," or something like that, and we can start with the re-categorization.
One more question though: which districts of Konya should we include in the lakes district? I'm particularly concerned about Akşehir, which has a lake, but as home of the Hoca (whose stories also include Konya), it seems like it's likely to attract the literary types who visit Rumi's tomb. —Quintucket (talk) 22:09, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
As I don't have the necessary mapmaking skills myself, I would be grateful to anyone who accepts to go through this. (And I think you could just upload the new map with the same name of the old one, as a newer version of the image.)
I've personally witnessed someone from Gümüşhane called as "Laz" by someone else from the other tip of the country. But it's very much possible that they are considered less of a "Laz" than people from elsewhere (such as Trabzon) that are more associated with that notion.
I would include Akşehir straightforwardly in the lakes region, but now that you ask it, I became less sure. However, almost-triangle-shaped Lake Akşehir is divided/bordered by three districts: the western third is part of Sultandağı district (of Afyon, which would go inevitably into the lakes/AKU region), while the southern third of Akşehir district (of Konya), and the eastern third of Tuzlukçu district (also of Konya). Keeping it undivided between the regions, and in the lakes region would be my preference, and in any rate, we can link Akşehir from Konya#Go next (even if we don't have an article for it yet), so it won't get lost to the readers/travellers. The districts of Konya which have/share a lake within its borders are Beyşehir (this should definitely go into the lakes region), Akşehir, and Tuzlukçu. We'd better put Doğanhisar, Hüyük, and Derebucak in, so we don't have weird, zigzagging regional boundaries. (Here is a handy map of the districts of Konya: File:Konya districts.png.) Vidimian (talk) 23:19, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
I suppose that putting Akşehir in the Lakes District would make it a big fish in a small pond. I rather regret that I didn't know about the Hoca festival last July, when I traveling around a lot, and it's possible it gets more attention that way (and other Hoca fans don't miss out). Any rate, I've added it to "Go Next" in Konya. I haven't created the article yet, since while I know that there's an annual Hoca festival July 5th-10th, that it's supposed to be a pretty city, and I assume you can get there by bus from Konya, those three things don't seem to be enough to make an article yet. —Quintucket (talk) 23:53, 19 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Well, you can start an article, write down what you know about the place, and let others complete the rest. It may take a while, but who knows, maybe we'll have a local who would be hesitant to create an article but might fill empty sections had the article existed. And isn't it better to have any information, regardless of how little it might be (and knowing how to go somewhere, why to go there, i.e., some about the Hoca himself, and what to do there wouldn't be something I'd call a little information), than to have no information? Currently, searches on Akşehir or Aksehir don't return anything, and it's likely that all we have on Wikivoyage about that town to offer is the one-liner at Konya#Go next that you have just added. However, it's your call whether or not create an outline for it. Vidimian (talk) 00:18, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
So I'm working on a new vector map (actually, I've pretty much finished, though I want to tweak a few things), and noticed that on the current map, Divriği is in Eastern Anatolia, while on the guide it's in Central Anatolia. Personally I think it would go better in Central Anatolia, since it was a major Seljuk center, as well as easily accessible from Sivas. On the other hand, it is the first main attraction east of Sivas along the railway to Kars, which I assume is why it's in there. So I guess the question is: who's more likely to visit the site: daytrippers from Sivas, or travelers en route to Kars (where I assume the attraction of Ani and Ararat outweighs that of other sites along the route for most travelers, like Elâzığ and Erzurum)? Personally, I'm probably going to visit it when I get around to my tour of Eastern Turkey, but if I'd known about it when I was in Sivas, I almost certainly would have attempted to visit while in Sivas.—Quintucket (talk) 22:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
The Central/Eastern Anatolia border was altered like that because Divriği is surrounded by steep mountains, which makes it better fit with Eastern Anatolia geographically in my opinion. However, it seems most travellers use Sivas as a base for their day-trips to Divriği, and according to this site (unfortunately a little outdated, and it is virtually impossible to get the necessary information from the arcane corners of TCDD's website), Doğu Express from the east arrives in the dead of the night. Except Sivas, direct buses only connect to Ankara, and Istanbul (i.e., no connections to the east), and there is not even a direct highway connection with the east! (Those thinner lines represent secondary, provincial roads—which are often narrower and less well-kept than national highways—and the only "highway" connection with Eastern Anatolia—the road leading to Arapgir district of Malatya—even shows a section of unpaved road!) So I'd be okay with moving it to Central Anatolia. (And for what it's worth, LP and RG also group the town together with Sivas rather than the East.) Vidimian (talk) 23:36, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
It is incredibly frustrating how the TCDD does not put the full timetables for the express trains. They do a pretty good job of keeping the detailed schedules of the regional trains up to date; why can't they do the same for the express trains, which have fewer stops to begin with? Any rate, I'll put Divriği back in Central Anatolia on the updated map then. —Quintucket (talk) 09:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
This is the png version of the new map, the svg original can be found at File:Turkey_regions_updated.svg.
I'm going to get to work on the Spanish and Turkish versions (I know we don't have a Turkish Wikivoyage, but I hope we will someday, and it is the language of the country), but I thought I'd upload the updated version with English and French (I used Wikipedia article names for placenames, but had to use Google Translate for the new regions) now.
One comment about the names. I've never been a fan of the place names "Southeastern Anatolia" and "Eastern Anatolia" since they cover an area that is by and large, not historical Anatolia and has almost nothing in common with what I think of as "Anatolian" food, culture, and architecture (those areas are far more Middle-Eastern than Anatolia is. (Despite its conservatism, Konya feels more like a European city than a Middle-Eastern one, as do Kayseri and Sivas. Ankara too, but it doesn't count.) I'm wondering how people would feel about extending the Aegean Turkey/Black Sea Turkey/Mediterranean Turkey/Southern Turkey naming scheme to those two regions, and calling them "Eastern Turkey" and "Southeastern Turkey?" —Quintucket (talk) 22:56, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
I think this looks good and that sounds fine. While we're at it, I'd love to get rid of the name "Black Sea Turkey," which sounds very awkward to my ear. I would prefer Karadeniz, although others have objected that it's a Turkish word (but who cares—it's the name?). Black Sea Coast (Turkey) would work, but it's pretty wordy and has an annoying disambiguator. --PeterTalk23:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Though I see nothing wrong with "Black Sea Turkey," I also see nothing wrong with "Karadeniz." We already use "Karadeniz" in the sub-region names (Eastern Karadeniz, Central Karadeniz, and Western Karadeniz). For English alternatives, we could call the region "Pontic Turkey," thereby referring to the mountains instead of the ocean, or call the region "Northern Turkey."
I know Anatolia historically was only used for naming the interior parts of the peninsula west of the line, say, from Trabzon to İskenderun, and it was only after the early years of the Republic that the definition of "Anatolia" was extended to include anywhere in the part of Turkey that lies on Asian landmass. However, isn't it natural that when you have regions named "Western Anatolia", and "Central Anatolia", the region east of Central Anatolia is called "Eastern Anatolia"? I would agree that the Southeast isn't really "Anatolia", as in many regards it's too different from the rest.
I also see nothing wrong with Black Sea Turkey, and also nothing wrong with Karadeniz, either (after all, it's exactly how the region is called in Turkey), but is Karadeniz really a common enough name in English? Other options for renaming this region may be "Turkish Black Sea Coast" (a la Bulgarian Black Sea Coast) or "Turkish Black Sea Region", but these are also too wordy. I wouldn't object to "Pontic Turkey" (and originally Pontic really referred to Pontos Euxeinos, "the hospitable sea", not the mountains), but anything related to the Greek name of the area often has negative political connotations in Turkey, and I think we'd better not risk having an endless line of Turkish users from the region angrily exclaiming that they are not Pontics. On "Norhern Turkey", I guess there is an (unwritten?) guideline at WV for not naming the region with bland directional names whenever possible, and I think it's the case here. The region in question is always associated with the sea it borders, so why not use it in some form or another? Vidimian (talk) 11:45, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
"Turkish Black Sea Coast" is probably what I'd use in conversation. But if I was talking to anyone else traveling there, I'd say Karadeniz. Then again, I didn't get to speak a lot of English during my weeks along the Karadeniz! --PeterTalk09:08, 28 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Sivas, Antakya, or Çanakkale instead of Edirne, and/or Troy for Gallipoli
Latest comment: 11 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
I haven't been to Edirne yet, but I've met many people, Turkish and foreign, who usually claim that except for the Selimiye complex, it's actually not a very interesting city. So I'd like to propose another city replaces it. My first impulse is Sivas, but that might make the list very Central Anatolia-heavy. (Also, I love Sivas, but I'm not sure there's much more to it than Edirne. I'm a sucker for just hanging around pretty places.) Additionally, I doubt that many Antipodean travelers make Gallipoli their first priority while it seems like many Aussies and Kiwis still visit Troy.
So I'd like to suggest either replacing Edirne with Çanakkale (and removing Gallipoli to make room for another site), or replacing Edirne with Antakya (a city of far more historical significance that will also add a bit more regional diversity) and Gallipoli with Troy. —Quintucket (talk) 19:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
I didn't think Edirne was an uninteresting city, but it's one of my ancestral hometowns that I visit often, and it's in part because of this connection that I find it interesting. So I may not be the best representative of an average traveller in this issue, and may be biased, and therefore will not comment on this. In any rate, there is a link to the Edirne article at the "see" section (together with the name of its top attraction), and Antakya might be a good representative city for our new southern region. (Edirne was on the list as some sort of a representative from Thrace in the first place, I guess, but that's a small region anyway.) And nothing is irreversible, if anyone disagrees with this change later.
I don't have hard facts at hand, but Troy might indeed be more popular with travellers, Antipodean or otherwise, than Gallipoli. So I won't mind that change. (But I wish we could retain a link to Gallipoli on this page, so users looking for Gallipoli—who might have little knowledge on the geography of Turkey—wouldn't have to go through the region articles. Maybe I should start writing a comprehensive "history" section, where a link to Gallipoli might be placed.) However, I see no need to list Çanakkale, as you are in Çanakkale either to visit Troy and/or Gallipoli (or, perhaps, Bozcaada), so we don't have to list the city as long as we have a link to one of these places, I'd say.
The map has to show all listed cities and other destinations, but this does not mean it cannot have any more. Provided there is no place constraints, it may still be worthwhile to keep Edirne, Gallipoli, etc on the map. Vidimian (talk) 00:43, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
The pageview-count tool doesn't seem to work yet for Wikivoyage, so I can't look at view statistics. What I can say is the Gallipoli has importance to Aussies, Kiwis, and probably to a lesser extent the French, Brits, Turks, and military history buffs, but Troy has universal significance. Even if Troy were less-visited than Gallipoli, people who go to Gallipoli probably know that they want to go to Gallipoli, whereas I feel the destinations should be a suggestion for people who aren't sure exactly what Turkey has on offer.
As for the map that I'm updating, I've kept all sights and cities already present, and added a couple things:
The new regions, obviously.
All UNESCO sites in Turkey not in a major city and not already on the map (Çatalhöyük, Divriği, Hattusa) except for Safranbolu (mainly because I can't figure out how to skew text and therefore move "Black Sea Region," which is covering it). I haven't put a name for Xanthos-Letoon though, because the full name seems awkwardly long and while I'm tempted to just put Xanthos, that's technically incorrect.
A handful more cities, namely Antakya (major historical site), Sivas (major transportation hub) Silifke (major town in Cilician Mountains), Şanlıurfa (already listed as one of our cities), and Eskişehir (major transportation hub, largest town in our new "Western Anatolia" region).
I'm trying to add French (already partially present), Spanish, and Turkish names to the theoretically multilingual map, which is tedious. Though I suppose maybe I should try uploading it to the Commons first, I think it might already be too big, simply from adding the new regions.
I've also thought about adding Alanya, as a major tourist destination remarkably distant from Antalya, but then I realized it seems to be mostly Germans who go there, so maybe not for English WV.
Incidentally, the reason I'm not going to upload the map over the old one, is that Commons policy says that if you make a substantially revised version of something and you're not the original author, you should upload it to a new location. —Quintucket (talk) 09:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
All changes and additions look good. I guess you're right on Troy vs Gallipoli issue. I guess Alanya is also popular with Scandinavian and Russian tourists (I remember seeing prices quoted in various krone units while I was there back in 2008, and on the Russian language magazine aimed at Russians living in Turkey I browsed through just yesterday, Алания was repeated almost continually—perhaps much more than any other Cyrillicized Turkish geographical name), and, as with the Germans, they could make use of English WV along with the version in their own native language, so you might add Alanya (or might not just as well). I wasn't aware of the Commons policy when I first made the comment on uploading the new file with the same name of the current map (as far as I know, it was always done like that before the migration). Vidimian (talk) 12:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
During the last 1 year there was an increase in terrorist activity in Turkey as there have been a number of indiscriminate attacks, some affected places visited by foreigners. I think now is the time to update stay safe section accordingly. --Saqib (talk) 05:16, 18 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
I'm usually in the minority on reflecting these sorts of news events in Wikivoyage articles, but unless there is something to say that would be useful to travelers I don't think there is enough information to add a warning box yet. Wikivoyage isn't a news site, so unless someone wants to spend the next several hours updating the warning box as information becomes available it's probably better to wait until there is clear information that we can provide on how the current situation will impact travelers. -- Ryan• (talk) •23:15, 15 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
All flights into Istanbul are cancelled and are being turned back, which would have a strong traveler impact. US State department has also issued warnings.
I'd agree that WV is not the place for news updates, but if someone does want to place verifiable warnings (not just rumors) then it should be OK. --Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:20, 15 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Short-term flight cancellations, temporary road closures, and other events of very limited duration are typically considered out of scope for Wikivoyage - for example, if storms shut down airports in a region it would usually not be mentioned. While state department warnings are mentioned if they pertain to a danger in a region, a warning typically wouldn't be included for an event that is of a very limited duration. The current situation in Turkey may have long term ramifications for travelers, but at this point I don't think it's clear whether or not that will be the case.
I understand the desire to reflect major news events in Wikivoyage guides - for example, since it was a news event someone added a road closure warning to the Nice article, something that probably wouldn't have even merited a mention had the source of the closure not been in the news - and would just ask that if these types of warnings are going to be added that they are legitimate travel planning information, and not just a way to show that Wikivoyage editors are concerned about news events. -- Ryan• (talk) •23:55, 15 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Have to agree with AndreCarrotflower, nice idea but would not work in practice. Take a look at Wikinews, a good 10 hours into the event and no mention on that new site. --Traveler100 (talk) 06:27, 16 July 2016 (UTC)Reply
Can anyone help update the timezone in the infobox?
Latest comment: 8 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion
Turkey use UTC+03:00 since 2016 September 8 and DST is not used anymore. I wanted to edit but I don't know how. (After clicked "edit" I found myself directed to a Wikidata page in which I feel confused) Can anyone help, please? Thank you. Dokurrat (talk) 17:54, 16 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
Turkey is a notable absentee on WV:$. How should we represent its currency? as 100 TL, 100 lira or the relatively new currency symbol, 100. I don't think the symbol is readable by most computers yet and TL seems to be quite popular although I personally think 100 lira looks best. Gizza (roam)00:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
100 TL is the most common, I'd say. The new symbol is a close second, and is common especially in big box stores, but much of the locals find it unnecessary and forced. Besides, it's not particularly easy to type. Vidimian (talk) 09:51, 28 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
In Istanbul now, I'm seeing both TL and the new symbol used. I haven't seen "lira" once. I would guess that the new symbol is gradually replacing TL as signs are updated, but if it doesn't display properly yet, we should stick with TL, which is what our articles use now. Switching the policy to "lira" would put all of out Turkish articles offside from the policy, and doesn't help readers who will be seeing TL and the new symbol. Ground Zero (talk) 14:28, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
According to this news report Turkey has suspended all visa services for US citizens indefinitely, following a similar move by the US for Turkish citizens. This effectively means that Americans can't visit Turkey, nor Turks the US. It is unclear just how long this will last – does this warrant a visa restriction warning box now (as in Iran), or should we first wait a few days to see how things play out before adding this information? –StellarD (talk) 09:27, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
The block has already been put into effect, so it affects travellers right now. I say put in the visa box ASAP (to both Turkey and the United States); we can always remove it just as easily if and when this turns out to be stupid posturing from two of most pig-headed men on the planet. --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:47, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I am writing from Istanbul. Turkey is blocking Wikipedia. Wikivoyage is not blocked. Except that if you just go to www.wikivoyage.org and type in a destination, e.g., Istanbul, you will be blocked because you are sent to the Wikipedia default language redirect https://www.wikipedia.org/search-redirect.php?family=wikivoyage&search=istanbul&button=&language=en&go=Go. If you go to www.wikivoyage.org, choose english and then search for a destination it works fine. But that might not be obvious to most users. Maybe Wikivoyage should just have English as the default language as e.g., Wikivoyage has. Or WV should have its own redirect page. Or the search-redirect should be on wikimedia. Elgaard (talk) 21:24, 2 April 2018 (UTC)Reply
Can confirm. Same thing happened to me. Another thing; should we maybe mention more stuff on WV that we would otherwise say "people can look it up on WP" in our guides for Turkey? Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
Yes, as long as it's fairly clearly in the interest of travelers to know those things. Of course, Wikivoyage might then also be blocked, but that shouldn't enter into our thinking. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)Reply
Illegal to refer to the Armenian Genocide as such?
Latest comment: 2 years ago18 comments6 people in discussion
Currently, the article classifies Turkey as part of the Middle East. However, as far as I know, Turkey is generally part of European rather than Asian regional bodies; for instance, Turkey does not participate in the Asian Games, but participates in the Eurovision Song Contest (I know they are for two different things, but you get the point). And generally, someone going to visit Turkey will consider themselves to be visiting Europe, so shouldn't we be classifying Turkey as part of Europe here? The dog2 (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Do you also want to point Israel to Europe, since they participate in the Eurovision Song Contest and European sports leagues? Turkey is primarily in Asia, and even Istanbul is in both Europe and Asia. And the current government has distanced itself from Europe and warmed to Iran and Arab governments. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
I was thinking that we should treat Turkey as analogous to Russia, since Russia's land is primarily in Asia, though of course, Moscow and St Petersburg are in Europe, as is most of Russia's population. Let's see what everybody else says. The dog2 (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
As someone from Europe, I considered myself to be travelling outside Europe when I visited (the Asian part of) Turkey. The obvious difference aside from arbitrary historical geography based on Ptolemy's understanding of the world is the dominant religion in each: "Islamic" Turkey on the one hand, "Christian" Europe on the other, to paint with massive generalising brush strokes. And yes, there are millions of European Muslims and probably tens of thousands of Christian Turks, not to mention the irreligious and those of other faiths in each, but the religion which has done the most to shape the Europe of today (including Russia, by the way) is not the same one as that which has been most dominant in Turkish civilisation. This does frame how we as modern travellers think about the world, and is as useful a way of drawing that arbitrary border line as any other.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 23:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Moreover, the traditional core of Turkey was Asia Minor, which the Seljuk Turks ruled for hundreds of years before the Ottomans took over and eventually conquered Byzantium. And if we go by population, while Russia's capital, biggest cities and the majority of its population is in Europe, the majority of Turkey's population is quite obviously in Asia. Is any Turkish European city other than the part of Istanbul in Europe in the top 10 of Turkish cities even? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:25, 29 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
OK, I guess some of this depends on your perspective then. I've never been to Turkey myself, but in Singapore, tours to Turkey are typically listed under tours to Europe in advertisements, even though such tours almost always cover the Asian part of Turkey too. The dog2 (talk) 04:51, 30 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
It definitely depends on perspective. I don't think you're wrong, and surely not alone, in considering all of Turkey part of Europe, but as I said the line has to be drawn somewhere for the purposes of our breadcrumb navigation, and Turkey's border with Bulgaria might as well be it.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 06:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)Reply
Definitely, a fair point The dog2. In a few countries in the world Turkey is deliberately portrayed as a horrible place with a different and even inferior culture. Fortunately, these countries are very limited (Some Western European countries, the USA etc). As someone from Turkey who has been living in Western Europe for 6 years, my observation is as follows: Indians, Latin Americans, Balkan people, Africans, Chinese, Russians, Central Asians etc. generally have a fair knowledge of Turkey, whereas the typical Western European person imagines Turkey as it is portrayed in the "Western" media. While we are in the 21st century, many of them love to emphasize being from different branches of the Abrahamic religions (which are like carbon copies of each other) and the same stereotypical inaccurate opinions instilled in them. In the secular Republic of Turkey, you can rarely find such comments emphasizing religious stuff. These behaviours should have been buried in the previous centuries imho. All in all, it definitely depends on the perspective and I also think that Turkey should be listed under Europe, but as we need consensus of opinions here, many people should be de-manipulated first to see Turkey as how it is. Alperunsal (talk) 07:17, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I'm well aware of the fact that the Turkish Republic founded by Ataturk was meant to be officially secular, but just how secular is Turkey now under the AK Party? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:05, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
An association with Asia in not bad, for me better than Europe actually. The term, "the Middle East", is the problem. It was created to have a negative connotation and I guess we all experience that this term is in a pejorative way. In Turkey, too, the way how the Middle East sounds is the same: backwarded, uncivilized, savage etc. It was actually a big surprise for me to see a respectable amount of people in Western Europe believing Turkey as fitting into this Middle East stereotype. Such a huge manipulation in the 21st century!
Middle East has no scientific value. Call it Western Asia as Central Asia, Eastern Asia etc. The middle of where? The east of what? A term used to stigmatize people against the new public enemy no.1 of the USA after the fall of the Eastern Bloc... There used to be the "communist terror threat" when the public enemy no.1 was communism. Then, in the 90s the so-called "islamic terror organization" emerged after being non-existent for 1370 years. From the Mujahedeen the US installed in Afghanistan against the Soviet operation there in the 1980s... Then, started this stigmatization against Muslims and the region with an arbitrary set of countries called the Middle East here.
You live in a progressive and intellectual society in Turkey. Everyone around you were grown up with these so-called "European values". You don't see any cultural differences to the disadvantage of Turkey when you go to Erasmus for example. From the Council of Europe to all European organizations your country appear. Then, you move to Western Europe, and people from a certian set of countries starts asking "Oh, do you drink alcohol in Turkey? Do you know what cathedral means? Have you heard Shakespeare? Do I have to wear a headscarf in Turkey? Is Istanbul similar to London or Raqqa? Is it safe there (most funnily Americans say this haha)? How much is it different than Saudi Arabia there? Do women and men shake hands there? Are there operas in Turkey?"
Personally, I am fed up with these ignorant weirdo questions by the "Westerners". The level of manipulation in the "Western" countries is unbelieveable. This is one of the reasons why I wouldn't want Turkey to be associated with a set of countries having very few things in common with Turkey. Hope this explains your question. Meurglys8 (talk) 19:59, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I stumbled across this discussion. But similar to @The dog2, I also learned that it was in Europe, not Asia. Similarly, if I was going to Türkiye, I'd be thinking of travelling to Europe. However, given that most of it landwise is in Asia, I think it's better to keep it breadcrumbed under the Middle East. SHB2000 (talk|contribs|meta.wikimedia)09:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
A. A brief summary about secularism in Turkey:
1. Atatürk & İnönü period: He was really secular, not only a "meant to be officially secular". Even at the level of anti-religiousity... You can compare 1923-1950 Turkey with Soviet Union or other socialist countries in terms of policies regarding religion. Think about a revolution taking place in Italy, abolishing the Pope and the world won't have a Pope any more. This was what happened in Turkey in 1928, alongside many similar radical things.
2. 1950-1960: Then, Turkey joined NATO, which meant it had to adopt the American-style democracy of choosing one of two candidates every 4 years. This brought an Erdoğan-like person to power, making some of the secular gains erode (re-installing religion courses at high schools etc)
3. 1960-1980: Another fully secular period ended up with a horrible US-backed military coup. Just like the US-backed brutal military coups in Greece, Chile etc...
4. 1980-2002: Post-coup years followed by a strange guy based in the US starting to open up some schools in Turkey to raise conservative young guys from rural areas to inflirtrate in the state.
5. 2002-2022: Erdoğan being re-electing over time by using a right-wing religious narrative to manipulate mainly the rural old people (just like Brexit, in Turkey, too, the old votes for the conservative charlatans). They succeeded. However, the new generation is different. According to polls, his party only gets around 10-15% support from the Generation Z (https://www.birgun.net/haber/akp-nin-korkulu-ruyasi-z-kusagi-362375 [A link in Turkish]).
B. Under the government of his AKP, the rate of irreligiosity has been steadily increasing. It was actually very good that they created the image of "the corrupt, robber, murderer pious" and people are getting more and more irreligious, with irreligiosity level estimated to be close to 30% among generation Z.
C. A survey from 2013 regarding secularism among people: (https://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/) In the secular Turkic countries (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan), only around 10% of the population is in favor of Sharia. This rate is 42% among Muslims in Russia, 99% in Afghanistan, 37% to 86% in Africa, 12% to 20% in European countries with a Muslim majority (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo), 71% to 91% in the region called as the Middle East here (by excluding to outlier Lebanon with 29%).
I knew Ataturk was anti-religious. The thing is, I believe irreligiousity has increased in Iran since the Mullahs enforced observance, too. I don't mean to equate the situation there with Turkey at all, but I think things are complicated when the government is sectarian but many of the people are irreligious. As for the term for the region, if you look through threads on Talk:Middle East, you'll see that I completely agree with the idea of removing Middle East from the breadcrumb hierarchy of this site, in favor of a "West Asia" region that excludes African countries, and then having Middle East, including countries like Egypt, as an extraregion article, outside of the breadcrumb hierarchy (which doesn't completely address the problem of Eurocentrism, but this guide follows Wikivoyage:Naming conventions that dictate the use of the most common English name for a place). You'll also see that I've been consistently overruled. If you start a new discussion at Talk:Middle East, I will support this solution again, but don't assume it'll attain a consensus this time. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:31, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the reply and the links! I've looked through them and will read them in more detail.
Yes, it seems irreligiosity also increased in Iran, too, and I agree with your point of view.
I'll try raising this issue by starting a talk there, thanks.
Indeed, we do. And there are lots of English-language terms that are Eurocentric or even focused toward particular parts of Europe. The idea of "East" and "West" as parts of the World (let alone Near or Middle East and Far East), rather than specific countries or continents, is totally arbitrary. What's east of California, let alone Japan? I used to live in Malaysia, where west gets you to Sumatra, India, Iran, the Arab world, Africa, Europe....But we're nevertheless bound to use terms a majority of English-speakers are likely to expect. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion
I have added this statement to the Understand section: "In 2022, the Government of Turkey began using the Turkish spelling of the country's name, Türkiye, as the name of the country in English." It is unlikely that "Türkiye" will become the common spelling of the country's name in English any time soon, so we should not change the title of the article, but travellers should be aware the this spelling will be used in Turkish governmnet documents and websites. Ground Zero (talk) 21:33, 20 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
There's no chance of "Türkiye" ever becoming the most common English name, due to the accent. We might see a shift to "Turkiye" over the years, however, like Eswatini over eSwatini.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 18:14, 2 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
I don't know about that. A report I heard on BBC interviewed people who ridiculed the government for trying to change the subject by pushing this name change instead of addressing inflation and any number of other serious problems. Should AK lose the next election, I don't know if the name change will stick. Ikan Kekek (talk) 16:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
And ultimately, it's not up to the Turkish government at all, because they haven't changed their country's name. They're asking every other country to use the Turkish word instead of their own languages' words; the rest of the world will decide whether or not to do so.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:40, 3 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago22 comments7 people in discussion
Hi, dear Wikivoyagers. The header image of Turkey is from a mosque with something Arabic (probably a verse from Qoran) written on it. As Wikivoyage is for travellers/tourists and not for imams/priests/rabbis, isn't this header image pretty meaningless?
1. Potential misperception about language: Arabic is closer to Spanish (8% Arabic vocabulary) than Turkish (6% Arabic vocabulary). Turkish is as close to French (5% French vocabulary, plus same script) as it is to Arabic (6% vocabulary, plus a different script). Expect for a small 2% Arabic minority in a specific region close to our Arabic neighbours (2 of 8 neighbours are Arabic), the native population of Turkey neither speaks Arabic nor can read the alphabet. It is not among the foreign languages (English, German, French, Russian, even Italian in rare cases) taught in the country unless you study something related to Theology. Isn't it meaningless to have a language like Arabic/Norwegian/Mandarin/Portuguese/Telugu/Vietnamese instead of Turkish in the header image?
2. Turkey is always around the 6th most visited country in the world and travellers/tourists visit Turkey for its wonderful beaches, cuisine, magnificent ancient cities in abundance, nightlife, natural beauties, shopping options, summer resorts, forests, hiking options, etc. How many tourists/travellers visit Turkey to see mosques in your opinion? I don't think we are at a Qoran course here. It would be better to have a header image reflecting Turkey's attraction for travellers.
My suggestions are as follows: Aspendos, Ephesus, Bodrum, nightlife scenes, Pamukkale, Cappadocia, Istanbul view with the Bosphorus, Ölüdeniz, Kaputaş Beach, Atatürk's Mausoleum, Nemrut, Patara (the first democratic council of the world), Göbeklitepe (the earliest ever known buildings built by humans), even Santa Claus (yes, he is from Turkey and is actually from a very warm place in Turkey where it almost never snows). Any of these would have a much better value than the current meaningless header image.
Would someone collaborate to improve the quality and the credibility of Wikivoyage by uploading a reasonable header image? Thank you in advance for your collaboration for the good of all of us.
So first, I don't think you'd disagree that mosques are one of the things Turkey is famous for, though as you mention, there are numerous other types of attractions in Turkey. If you'd like to offer an alternative pagebanner, read starting at Wikivoyage:Banner Expedition#Creating a banner and see if you can find an image you find more suitable, then create a banner and post a thumbnail of it along with the existing banner, so we can vote on which one we prefer. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:09, 8 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Between June 2013 and August 2013Between August 2013 and April 2014From April 2014
Turkey has a lot of different types of attractions, so it is very hard to get an image representative of all. Monumental mosque construction is something the Turks have excelled at, so I don't know why details from a particularly beautiful Ottoman mosque can't be a representative image for Turkey. Besides, if I'm reading it correctly, w:Tourism in Turkey suggests a third of all arrivals to Turkey visit Istanbul, the mosques of which are a huge drawcard. I suspect an image from elsewhere (a beachside location, partying till the morning, an ancient ruin, a medieval church, etc.) would be too site-specific.
Furthermore, Istanbul is a hub to reach other locations. 1/3 actually seemed much lower than expected to me. Also, health tourism has been becoming more and more wide scale as you can also see in the link. I'll try to come up with new banner suggestions.
The first banner is from an ancient city, called Rhodiapolis. I'm an avid visitor of ancient cities and can count at least two dosens of them right now from my memory. Even I wasn't aware of the existence of Rhodiapolis. Seemed to me like showing a fourth division football team as representative of Spanish teams, instead of showing Real Madrid or Barcelona.
Turkey is absolutely a wonderful travel destination, and it has some great mosques, but I agree that mosques are not emblematic of Turkey. Many countries have mosques. I think a bazaar, or a Cappadocian landscape, or Greco-Roman ruins would be a more unique representation. Or food, but maybe that's just me. I loved the food in Turkey. Ground Zero (talk) 03:12, 9 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I think that an image of a mosque is one of the best types of images for the Turkey country article. Nemrut Dağı is only at 37°58'51"N 38°44'26"E. Beaches are only at coastal areas. But mosques are everywhere in Turkey. This is probably also true for bazaars, which would be my second option. --FredTC (talk) 09:22, 9 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Agreed. That's what I tried to express by "site-specific" in my comment above. However, I'm eagerly waiting for the banner proposals Meurglys8 reported to get to provide. Vidimian (talk) 09:34, 9 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
To be honest, I'm not very fond of that one. To me, it shows some indistinguishable (very) old walls against a hazy agricultural-looking land, although I like the background effect offered by the lower elevation. Vidimian (talk) 07:05, 14 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
Hi fellows. I've come up with my suggestions. First, a brief intro:
Following this intro, my suggestion is to find a banner that would try to satisfy the following: a. relevant to the primary reason to visit Turkey (travel, entertainment, sport, or cultural activities), b. relevant to the geographical/demographical features of the country (coastal, urbanized, mountainous), c. relevant to the ideologicaal / religious tendency of the country (secularism)
Here are my following suggestions:
1. 1. Borçka Karagöl (Turkey) banner Karagöl: lake view, hills, forest
(I moved your comment to the chronological order, for the ease of following the thread.)
Lots of great proposals, thanks a lot!
My quick thoughts on each:
Borçka: truly great, but doesn't scream "Turkey" to me. Can be used in Eastern Karadeniz.
Ayder: Also very beautiful, but I'd hope to find another article for it.
Levent: Nah, too indistinctive — could be any major city in anywhere on earth.
Rumeli Hisarı: This one I liked best. It tells the story of Turkey bridging the continents as well as combining ancient and modern.
Kekova: Beautiful but a very similar one is in use in Lycia.
Anıtkabir: Sure, it's a major site in the capital, but how many overseas travellers make it to the capital? (Or even Turks, does Ankara receive a significant number of Turkish visitors just for the sake of it and not for business of sorts?)
Ölüdeniz: Looked somewhat dull to me.
Sardes: I also liked this a lot, and would be keen to place it somewhere if not this article.
Ephesus: Also looks great, but I'm not sure if that's the ideal crop.
Alanya: There's something I don't like about this one. Fish eye effect or the blurry background, I don't know.
Bodrum 1: Looks good.
Bodrum 2: Dull, grainy.
Göcek: I'm not sure if I liked that conglomeration of roofs covering almost half of the banner at its right.
Marmaris: A very similar one is in use in that article.
Knidos: I'd like to use this somewhere, but perhaps not in the country article.
So all in all, I think I liked Rumeli Hisarı, Sardes, Bodrum 1, and Ephesus most, probably in that order. I've also found Ayder and especially Borçka great, but as I said, I'd rather use them somewhere else.
Thanks for your impeccable feedback, Vidimian. It is obviously constructive, well-thought and well-written. I almost 100% agree with your comments. I especially liked your interpretation about the image including Rumeli Hisarı. With this interpretation, I'm also voting for it now.
A small note about Ankara and Anıtkabir:
1. Yes, you are right. Ankara doesn't attract a significant number of visitors. The first stats I've found indicate 3.7 million domestic visitors stayed at least one night in Ankara in 2018, making it the fifth (among eighty-one) most popular province (business travellers constitute a significant amount of this I suppose). It wasn't even among top five for international visitors. However, interestingly, Anıtkabir was visited 6.581.232 times in the same year.
2. My reason to share a banner of Anıtkabir was its ideological compatibility with the Republic of Turkey and the population residing in it (92% saying they are grateful for Atatürk, higher than the number of Muslims [our current banner is a mosque] even by including nominal Muslims, Alevis etc.).
The one with caption "Between June 2013 and August 2013" was the Turkey banner for only 2 months; a better crop from the same original, showing more of the ruins, would be good alternative.
The one with the caption "Option A" is not a valid banner, because it is less than 2100px wide.
From the ones by Meurglys8, nrs 2, 4, 11 and 13 are cropped from originals that are lesss than 2100px wide and enlarged after cropping, losing quality. Nr 6 has an object that could represent Turkey, because it links to the founder of Turkey. However it is a little bit dark, so another image of the mausoleum could do better.
The one with caption "From April 2014", the present banner, is a good composed banner that represents the Muslim aspect of Turkey.
My preference would be to keep the present one. My second choice would be an image of the mausoleum, but not nr 6 of Meurglys8; a crop of this one would be fine. --FredTC (talk) 14:41, 26 March 2022 (UTC)Reply
I prefer the current banner. The mosques are beautiful buildings and the Hagia Sophia, for example, is a popular tourist attraction, although I believe it has been converted back to a mosque now. Many of the banners suggested are excellent but do not represent Turkey as well as the current banner. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 11:22, 15 May 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Turkey is now facing inflation of 70% on an annualized basis. In 2017, US$1 = 3.6 TL; in 2020, US$1 = 7 TL; and now US$1 = 16.5 TL. Any prices that are indicated as being prior to 2021 or without a date stamp are now out of date and should be removed. Ground Zero (talk) 15:41, 3 June 2022 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago6 comments3 people in discussion
Vidimian, looks like you're uninjured, are your family all safe? What news have we on other contributors and sources in the stricken region?
This disaster is still unfolding, as over a million have been rendered homeless, and this comes on top of tensions along Turkey’s political fault-lines. There will obviously be a huge internal refugee problem, with people displaced to temporary budget accommodation across the country. The nightmare scenario is if this becomes the next Gaza Strip: those families on the beach have a roof over their heads but have lost so much else, and are still there 75 years and three generations later.
Where WV can help is by documenting the regions still in business – package tour operators are promoting the Aegean as in normal years, and it’s important those resorts don’t suffer by association. I’ve made a start on Bodrum.
Turkey reaches its centenary in October and it would be good to have a Turkish DOTM that month. Trabzon has been nominated but that page needs a lot of work, as would Ankara; Istanbul has already featured, and Bursa and Izmir featured on the Ist-Iz itinerary. My suggestion is Edirne, which looks good-to-go. Grahamsands (talk) 19:52, 7 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Yes, thank you. I live in a far-away part of the country, but I've got members of my extended family in the area. They are all okay, although some lost their homes. Like many people over there, they have cottages over the mountains or on the coast as secondary houses, so they are managing to get along. That's not optimal, but still...
I don't anticipate a Gaza Strip scenario, but given the scale of destruction — shocking, to say the least — I expect the reconstruction to take decades. Even then, I'm not sure if we can put what we lost back in its place. But, come to think of it, hasn't that already happened numerous times through the history, some in the very same area of this disaster?
Your edits to Bodrum are very appreciated, as always. Having a Turkish DOTM on the centenary of the Turkish Republic would be a cool idea I've never thought of before. I haven't throughly checked those articles as of late, but that the Istanbul-Izmir itinerary having featured doesn't stop Bursa or Izmir to be nominated since they are separate articles — the main guidelines are that the articles should be at guide status or better, and should never be featured before. If I'm not mistaken, we've even had main city, district, and travel topic articles featured from the same city before, presumably with a reasonable time gap inbetween. Edirne could also be considered for nomination. Given how the DOTM discussions on improving the nominated article and scheduling take a long time, I'd encourage you to plunge forward as soon as possible — we've got about seven months to October. Vidimian (talk) 09:24, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Should we remove the warningbox from the lead of Turkey and instead say something more about what regions are open to normal tourism? Documenting the regions still in business, as Grahamsands puts it? I think the current warning box does turn people turn away ("by association"). –LPfi (talk) 11:04, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
I think it's still too early to remove the warningbox altogether; the roughly fifth of the country that was effected has (or had) plenty of somewhat famous attractions, and I don't expect them to be open to visit safely again anytime soon. In the remaining four-fifths, some hotels, particularly along the Mediterranean coast, temporarily host survivors, but other than that, it's almost business as usual as far as I'm aware, but not without a bit of low mood obviously. Vidimian (talk) 11:45, 8 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
It would be especially fitting to have Ankara as DOTM in Sept / Oct this year, given its capital status, focus of celebrations, ease of access, and wealth of visitor amenities and POIs. Therefore IMO it trumps other Turkish candidates - they'll have their turn. (Edirne for instance is a stronger candidate whenever the high speed rail link opens.) The Ankara page needs a solid week's work to bring it to PDG status. I already had this on a to-do list for later in the year but can bring forward, starting let's say 4 April. I'll also now open a thread on Ankara talk page on what else might be helpful there. Grahamsands (talk) 10:47, 10 March 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago14 comments5 people in discussion
Since late 2021 but in particular from the beginning of 2023, Turkey suffers from high inflation rates and the prices go out of date quickly. So on Ceever's suggestion here, I added rough euro equivalents to the updated (as of Aug 2023) admission fees in the Turkish lira to the listings for the sights in Istanbul/Sultanahmet-Old City#Sultanahmet Square. I might expand this as much as possible to the other articles about locations in Turkey, and would also like to add some kind of warning to Turkey#Buy along the lines of the following:
As of 2023, Turkey suffers from high inflation rates. Any prices quoted in the Turkish lira last month might have gone outdated already, so take them with a grain of salt, especially if there is any doubt that they might not have been updated for a while. Some Wikivoyage articles provide additional rough estimates in hard currencies, usually in euros, alongside the lira. These provide a better indication of the actual costs, but it shouldn't be taken as a suggestion whether non-Turkish currency will be accepted as a form of payment.
This proposal is somewhat unorthodox (as Erdoğan's puppets like to call their economic "policies") but we need a solution. Any ideas? Vidimian (talk) 00:48, 15 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
@Vidimian: Thanks for your effort. The infobox looks great, I am in favor of putting it under Turkey#Buy.
The prices TL with hard currency in brakets looks indeed a little weird. Actually, now thinking about it, why don't we just put the hard currency like ≈€13, ca. €13 or about €13, and leave the TL out? Who knows how long that inflation is going to last ... in Argentina for example it seems never to stop, wages are just constantly adjusted. Why bother publishing TL at all, when all the traveller really cares about is the impact on his budget and not whether he has the right change ready.
I don't know, giving out the prices in a currency that you can't use to pay looks weird to me. Perhaps providing the hard currency equivalent in smaller fonts would look better, such as:
I think the italics version looks good, as it doesn't suggest one can use the hard currency – and I definitely prefer "about" over the tilde: it is clearer, cleaner and not too long anyway. –LPfi (talk) 05:58, 17 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
The italics version indeed looks great. 👍 I will review the articles I have on my watchlist to update this accordingly. Cheers Ceever (talk) 15:42, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
I put the infobox into Turkey#Buy, but changed the year to 2020. This thing's been going in for a while now.
I started the disclaimerbox with an "As of ..." to signify that it's talking about a current trend, and that it isn't one of the many boxes in Wikivoyage that were helpful and made sense when they went online but are outdated now. And thinking of it, when the Turkish lira started its free fall is of little relevance to travellers (it's actually a bit encyclopedic, and is already mentioned a little in the close-by infobox titled "What does it cost?") whereas where the situation stands today is important. Vidimian (talk) 17:40, 24 August 2023 (UTC)Reply
"As of 2023" just sounds like it is a recent phenomenon. I wouldn't want to give readers this impression. It has been a constant issue since 2020 or even 2019. Claiming it is a 2023 problem because of the elections sound like mainstream media that constantly wants to paint the present in the most disasterous way. I noticed this in the German press, they pick up falls of 3% or so as worthy for a news update, but never mention the history or the relation to the past inflation. They even sometimes don't give numbers or quote the USD exchange rate, which is totally pointless for Europeans. Any reader interested in the topic should not be alarmed but should be given the opportunity to dig into the topic deeper if interested — "Since 2020" would achive that, I think.
But as a compromise we could just leave out the year and say "since a while now", could be months, could be years ...
Turkey#By train says they are suspended, although I don't know how up-to-date it is. A brief look at the TCDD Taşımacılık website also didn't lead me anywhere. However, while the said picture seems to be taken while there still was a direct train from Istanbul to Tehran, the TVS2000 cars shown are very commonly used in long-distance trains in Turkey to my knowledge, so it's still possible to see those cars, or others of that series, at the very point the photo was taken as the Vangölü Express, which also doesn't contradict the current caption: "The train from Ankara to Lake Van heading through the mountains of Eastern Turkey". I also don't find that photo particularly bad, but you are welcome to replace it with a better one, particularly if you can find one from a region under-represented among the images in this article. (Although removing it leaves us with zero images from Eastern Anatolia.) Vidimian (talk) 15:23, 17 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 1 year ago5 comments2 people in discussion
I mean perhaps some of those places now need tourist income again? If so places tourists still should not go could be written in more local articles. Chidgk1 (talk) 18:11, 17 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps they need the income, but how can we act like nothing happened when Antakya has all of its three main museums still closed, many, if not all, of its hotels destroyed, and parts of the city, according to videos shot within the last month, resemble huge empty lots with very few buildings standing, and even then those buildings all look heavily battered? It's likely the same in Kahramanmaraş and other towns close to the epicentre. We can tweak the language in the warningboxes, but I think it's still too early to declare everything is as nice and well as before the quake.
Thanks for putting my signature back. I am not here on Wikitravel often so I was unsure how to do it from my phone after editing.
Of course I understand that tourists should not go if the remaining accommodation or other resources are required for more important things. As I have never been to Maraş or Antakya perhaps there is someone reading this who comes from the affected area? If so what do you think? Do you want tourists now or should we stay away for the moment? I did not know the warning box language could be tweaked. That gives more options. Chidgk1 (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
I have not talked to many Turks from the affected regions. But the general opinion seems to be that the earthquake warning on this page could be removed now.
Aftershocks seem to have ceased, or at least slowed down (a 5-plus-magnitude quake happened near Malatya a few days ago), and much of the rubble seems to have been cleared away (leaving behind... nothingness), so I'm fine with removing the warningbox from this article. Vidimian (talk) 21:53, 28 November 2023 (UTC)Reply
It also says "... may need more content ..." (emphasis mine), because this article is at outline status; please see Wikivoyage:Country article status. So it isn't that this article itself lacks information but that not all of the articles linked at the "Cities" an "Other destinations" sections are at usable status or higher so that this article can be rated "usable". (Now that I just checked a few of the linked articles, I realized that this article isn't very far from usable status actually.) Vidimian (talk) 20:05, 17 October 2023 (UTC)Reply
100. I don't think the symbol is readable by most computers yet and TL seems to be quite popular although I personally think 100 lira looks best. Gizza (roam) 00:32, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
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