THE TURKISH LANDSCAPE

Turkey is a beautiful country. Its forbidding mountain ranges are buried in snow in winter, and the snowmelt has carved deep river gorges across the lowlands. These rivers, hundreds of metres wide in spring, dwindle to almost nothing in summer.

The rocky hillsides are filled with hundreds of wildflowers in spring, which become a riot of colours. Turkey is the most botanically diverse country in the world. 

The Rivers Euphrates and Tigris are sourced in the Turkish mountains and flow through Turkey, Syria and Iraq on their way to the Persian Gulf. These huge rivers have always been the fulcrum on which Middle Eastern civilisation was built.

The landscape has changed dramatically over the past 12,000 years. Agriculture and climate change have gradually dwindled the vast plains, filled with herds of gazelle and wild cattle, but the people who lived here long ago would still recognise the spirit of their homeland.