ABSTRACT
Turkey is a unitary state, a parliamentary democracy with a president (five year term, can be re-elected for another term), prime minister and cabinet (where real political power is vested), and a 550 member parliament (elections every four years). The Turkish Republic was established in 1923 and is the successor of the Ottoman Empire. The total area of the country is 780,000 square kilometres and the population is just over 73 million (end of 2009), of which 76 per cent live in urban areas (Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu/TUİK 2010: 3).
