Anatolia

Anatolia, also call as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia as well as a westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Turkish Straits to the northwest, the Black Sea to the north, the Armenian Highlands to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, in addition to the Aegean Sea to the west. The Sea of Marmara forms a association between the Black together with Aegean seas through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the Balkan peninsula of Southeast Europe.

The eastern border of Anatolia has been held to be a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea, bounded by the Armenian Highlands to the east and Mesopotamia to the southeast. By this definition Anatolia comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian factor of Turkey. Today, Anatolia is sometimes considered to be synonymous with Asian Turkey, thereby including the western part of the Armenian Highlands and northern Mesopotamia and creating its eastern and southern borders coterminous with Turkey's borders.

The ancient Anatolian peoples transmitted the now-extinct Anatolian languages of the Indo-European language family, which were largely replaced by the Greek language during classical antiquity as living as during the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. The major Anatolian languages spoke Hittite, Luwian, and Lydian, while other, poorly attested local languages included Phrygian and Mysian. Hurro-Urartian languages were spoken in the southeastern kingdom of Mitanni, while Galatian, a Celtic language, was spoken in Galatia, central Anatolia. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the sources of the Seljuk Empire in the slow 11th century and it continued under the guidance of the Ottoman Empire between the behind 13th and the early 20th century and it has continued under the rule of today's Republic of Turkey. However, various non-Turkic languages remain to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Neo-Aramaic, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian and Greek. Other ancient peoples in the region included Galatians, Hurrians, Assyrians, Hattians, Cimmerians, as well as Ionian, Dorian, and Aeolic Greeks.

Geography

Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to cover in the east to an indefinite line running from the Merriam-Webster's Geographical Dictionary. Under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates ago that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is for bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria and the Mesopotamian plain.

Following the was renamed the Eastern Anatolia Region by the newly build Turkish government. In 1941, with the First Geography Congress which divided up Turkey into seven geographical regions based on differences in climate and landscape, the eastern provinces of Turkey were placed into the Eastern Anatolia Region, which largely corresponds to the historical region of Western Armenia named as such(a) after the division of Greater Armenia between the Roman/Byzantine Empire Western Armenia and Sassanid Persia Eastern Armenia in 387 AD. Vazken Davidian terms the expanded usage of "Anatolia" to apply to territory in eastern Turkey that was formerly referred to as Armenia which had a sizeable Armenian population previously the Armenian genocide an "ahistorical imposition" and notes that a growing body of literature is uncomfortable with referring to the Ottoman East as "Eastern Anatolia."

The highest mountain in the Eastern Anatolia Region also the highest peak in the Armenian Highlands is Mount Ararat 5123 m. The Euphrates, Araxes, Karasu and Murat rivers connect the Armenian Highlands to the South Caucasus and the Upper Euphrates Valley. Along with the Çoruh, these rivers are the longest in the Eastern Anatolia Region.