Turkey Major Cities by Population

In relation to the great diversity of the natural environment are the significant differences that are noted in the rural settlement. The highest areas of the interior, wooded and grassy, ​​are crossed in summer by nomadic shepherds (called Juruchi, whose number is estimated at about 200 thousand), who live in mountain farmhouses (yaya), while in winter they they gather at the bottom forming villages of tents (kï Ş lak), which gradually become fixed.

On the slopes of the hills bordering the plateau, where there are dejection cones and there is no shortage of water, Turkish horticulturists and farmers have gladly built their homes, who grow wheat, opium poppies, vegetables and live in villages. to houses side by side, built with sun-dried bricks and with a flat roof, with a terrace, generally with two floors, of which the lower is used for stable and shed, the upper for housing. In older houses, the part reserved for women (harem) is still separate from that reserved for men (selamlik) and walls block the view of the courtyards to outsiders. In the steppes, which were better suited to grazing than to cultivation when this was practiced extensively, a vast colonization by refugees from Macedonia, Bulgaria and Dobruja began a few years ago. The houses, arranged for the most part in a checkerboard pattern, are larger than among horticulturists, given the need to have stables to shelter the cattle used for the heavy work of the fields, and the roof, similar to European houses, is slightly sloping. sloping, built with tiles and reeds. The part of the steppe where rainfall is too scarce to be able to attempt cereal cultivation, is the undisputed dominion of the Kurds and Turkmen, dedicated to livestock, who live in rather large villages, located near the springs; the houses are spacious, built of stone and the roof is flat. In the warmer regions of Kurdistān, which look towards Mesopotamia, the high night temperatures push the residents to sleep in the summer on the terraces, where the beds are brought, sheltered from mosquito nets. For Turkey 1999, please check estatelearning.com.

The houses are low, often built with earth mixed with straw, or with stones of the same color as the surrounding land. In N., in the forest area, wooden houses prevail, with frequent footprints left by the Greeks. Then corresponds to our farm the çiftlik, very common in western Anatolia, which mostly consists of a large farmyard, around which are the low settlers’ houses, with 3 or 4 rooms. In 1927 a census of buildings was also carried out and 2,770,000 residential houses were counted, 89,000 buildings not intended for habitation, but inhabited, and 800,000 other buildings, with a minimum of 237 residents for 100 houses in the Bilecik vilâyet and a maximum of 723 in the Istanbul vilâyet.

Just under a quarter of the population (23.5%) lives in cities and the rest in rural municipalities. There are 403 cities in all, but only 80 have a population of over 10 thousand. and 21 over 25 thousand residents The latter are as follows:

It should be noted that only 5 cities are located on the coast: two overlook the Black Sea, two the Mediterranean and one is where Europe and Asia almost meet. Although Istanbul is no longer the state capital, it retains its economic and military importance, given its location at the intersection of land and sea routes. Among the cities of the Black Sea, Trebizond, which overlooks the sea from a rocky platform, is the outlet of a vast hinterland (partly beyond the border); Samsun is in considerable progress, after the opening of the railway that connects it to the Mediterranean; Smyrna is still intent on repairing the damage of the fire (1922) which largely destroyed it; Mersina is in a favorable position with respect to the hinterland, a short distance from Adana, market of the Cilician plain and traffic junction, but suffers from the lack of a good port. Among the centers of the interior, among which the most important is Angora (870 msm), which is losing its appearance as a market place near a fortress, to increasingly assume that of capital (from 13 November 1923), Brussa should be remembered. (180 msm), ancient capital, rich in monuments, a city where the textile industry has a long tradition, which is located between two terraces on the slopes of the Olympus of Misia and which looks from above towards a well-cultivated plain. A SE. di Brussa EskiŞehir (752 msm) is an obligatory point of passage for those who have to go from the old to the new capital. Conia (1028 msm) is in a region that constitutes a well-identified unit, so much so that it resembles an oasis, and, little damaged by the exodus of Greeks, it now benefits from the crops grown in the irrigated area of ​​Çumra. While Conia is located at the western limit of the Lycaonia plain, on the eastern side there is Caesarea (1070 masl), a short distance from Kïzïl Ïrmak, near the slopes of the Aegean, a large andesitic ulcano 3830 m high, at the foot of the which gush out of the springs which allow an intensive cultivation; instead everything around dominates the steppe. NE. there is Sïvas (1220 masl), once an isolated locality located in the upper valley of the Kïzïl Ïrmak, while now a railway section connects it to the Samsun-Cesarea line; towards the east the railway will have to reach Erzerum (2038 meters above sea level). A SE. there are numerous cities, Gazi Antep (940 masl), a large center between the Euphrates valley and the plain of Cilicia; Diyarbekir, road and caravan junction on the right bank of the Tigris; Maraş (720 msm), railway junction near the buttresses of the Antitaurus; Malatya (870 msm), a short distance from the Euphrates in the midst of intensive cultivation; Urfa (660 msm), cities all oriented towards Mesopotamia and in which Kurdish and Arab aspects prevail.