Anatolia

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For other uses, see Anatolia (disambiguation) and Asia Minor (disambiguation).
Coordinates:

39N 35E

The location of Turkey (within the rectangle) in reference to the European continent. Anatolia roughly
corresponds to the Asian part of Turkey, except the eastern parts historically known as the Armenian
Highlands

Anatolia (from Greek ,Anatol "east" or "(sun)rise"; in modern Turkish: Anadolu), in

geography known as Asia Minor (from Greek: Mkr Asa "small Asia"; in
modern Turkish: Kk Asya), Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the
westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of the Republic of Turkey. The
inhabitants of this region predominantly spoke Greek until the region was conquered first by
theSeljuk Turks and later by the Ottoman Empire.
The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and
the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and
Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia
fromThrace on the European mainland.
Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of
skenderun and the Black Sea to what is historically known as the Armenian Highlands (Armenia
Major). This region is now named and largely situated in the Eastern Anatolia region of the far
north east of Turkey and converges with the Lesser Caucasus - an area that was incorporated in
the Russian Empire region of Transcaucasia in the 19th century.[1][2] Thus, traditionally Anatolia is
the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey.
However, since the Armenian Genocide and declaration of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the
Armenian Highlands had been renamed Eastern Anatolia by the Turkish government [3] and
Anatolia is often considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, which comprises almost the
entire country,[4] its eastern and southeastern borders are widely taken to be the Turkish borders
with neighboring Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, in clockwise direction.