Turkey is situated at the western end of Asia and extends across the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus Straits into the eastern part of Europe. The Asian part, the Anatolian peninsula, is about the size of Texas and is bounded by the Black Sea, Russia and Ukraine to the north, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran to the east, Syria, Iraq and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The European portion, called Thrace, is bounded by the Black Sea and Romania to the north, Greece, Bulgaria and the Aegean Sea to the west.
Even though the country has broad coastal plains, more than half of the country is over 800 meters above sea level, with mountain ranges running in the east-west direction. The highest mountain is the biblical Mount Ararat (over 5000 meters), and about 130 peaks are 4000 meters high. Much of the centre of Anatolia is a dry plateau high above sea level punctuated by mountains. In the Cappadocia region alone, there are four dormant volcanoes on the plain without sight of one another, all of which around 3000 meters or higher. Many rivers run through the country into the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and even into the Indian Ocean through the rivers Tigris and Euphrates.
Turkey is in a seismically active region, with fault lines running through various parts of the country, which have caused numerous earthquakes and destruction of human habitation and man-made structures over the centuries.
