ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the legal and administrative shift in disaster understanding and coping policies in a 500-year period of Turkey's disaster history. The development of pre-disaster laws and regulations, as well as newly established, more comprehensive institutions in order to cope with adverse effects of disasters, reveal important clues about the shift from "healer state" to "protector state" understanding. The chapter explains the former development law was insufficient and could not meet the necessary and contemporary needs of building and inspection issues. Turkey's history also reveals that shift, which was recorded and dated to the first years of the sixteenth century in the Ottoman Empire period. The first Earthquake Zones Map of Turkey was produced, which can be seen as an initial effort to prepare a Seismic Hazard Map of Turkey. The chapter explains the case-specific and rehabilitative legal and administrative approaches continued during this period.
