Anatolia has been inhabited by many peoples throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Hittites, Luwians, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Mitanni, Scythians, Cimmerians, Urartians, Carians, Commagene, Cilicians, Arameans, Kaskians, Mushki, Palaic, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Colchians, Iberians, Georgians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks, and Ottomans.

This wider definition of Anatolia has gained widespread currency outside of Turkey and has, for instance, been adopted by Encyclopedia Britannica and other encyclopedic and general reference publications.

Because of these natural conditions, the Black Sea coast historically has been isolated from Anatolia.

Located on the west coast of Anatolia, the Aegean region has a fertile soil and a typically Mediterranean climate ; with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers.

Anatolia has a varied range of climates.

Anatolia has had many civilizations throughout history, such as the Hattians, Hurrians, Luwians, Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, Urartians, Cimmerians, Carians, Scythians, Corduene, Armenians, Romans, Georgians, Circassians, Kurds, Seljuk Turks and Ottomans.

Since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Anatolia has become Turkey, its inhabitants being mainly Turks and Kurds ( see demographics of Turkey and history of Turkey ).

Thus the " Aegean Area " has now come to mean the Archipelago with Crete and Cyprus, the Hellenic peninsula with the Ionian islands, and Western Anatolia.

The city has traditionally been a pole of attraction, and was a major center for refugees from various ethnic backgrounds who immigrated to Anatolia from the Balkans during the loss of the Ottoman territories in Europe between the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Found in a Hattic royal tomb dated about 2500 BC, at Alaca Höyük in northern Anatolia, the dagger has a smelted iron blade and a bronze handle.

This friction has been due to disputes including the self annexation of the Hatay Province to Turkey in 1939, water disputes resulting from the Southeastern Anatolia Project, and Syria ’ s support for the outlawed Kurdistan Worker's Party ( PKK ) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia ( ASALA ), but relations have improved greatly since October 1998 ; when PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was expelled by Syrian authorities.

Because of these natural conditions, the Black Sea coast historically has been isolated from Anatolia.

Located on the western side of Anatolia, the Aegean region has a fertile soil and a typically Mediterranean climate ; with mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers.

The government has also initiated many planned projects, such as the Southeastern Anatolia Project ( G. A. P project ).

The Eskişehir-Istanbul section of the line is scheduled to be completed by 2012, and includes the Marmaray tunnel which will enter service in 2012 and establish the first direct railway connection between Europe and Anatolia. Second high-speed rail line, which has length of 212 km between Ankara and Konya become operational in 2011.

He has spent 4 years building the city on the site of ancient Byzantium ; having chosen the site for its strategic location ( a seaport with easy access to Anatolia and the Danube ).

* c. 6000 BC: Fully Neolithic agriculture has spread through Anatolia to the Balkans.

The Proto-Greeks probably arrived at the area now called Greece, in the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, at the end of the 3rd millennium BC ,, though a later migration by sea from eastern Anatolia, modern Armenia, has also been suggested.

Gallus, Caesar of the East, has suppressed revolts in Palestine and central Anatolia.

** Timarchus, Seleucid nobleman, possibly from Miletus in Anatolia, appointed governor of Media in western Iran by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes and who has rebelled against his successor, Demetrius I Soter, until he is killed in a battle with Demetrius ' forces

* 187 BC – Antiochus III the Great, Seleucid king of the Hellenistic Syrian Empire from 223 BC, who has rebuilt the empire in the East but failed in his attempt to challenge Roman ascendancy in Greece and Anatolia ( b. c. 241 BC )

Through his military and diplomatic skills, he has created a powerful kingdom in Anatolia ( b. 269 BC )

* Publius Servilius Vatia returns to Rome, he has triumphed against the pirates in Anatolia and is given the agnomen Isauricus.

During the 1st century BC the Armenians in what had been Urartu established the powerful Armenian kingdom under Tigran who reigned throughout much of eastern Anatolia between the Caspian, Black Sea and Mediterranean.

Artemis may have been represented as a supporter of Troy because her brother Apollo was the patron god of the city and she herself was widely worshipped in western Anatolia in historical times.

Myths in which Ea figures prominently have been found in Assurbanipal's library, and in the Hattusas archive in Hittite Anatolia.

The fate of the Galatian people is a subject of some uncertainty, but they seem ultimately to have been absorbed into the Greek-speaking populations of west-central Anatolia thereby giving a fresh transmission of light skin, blue eyed, and fair haired ethno-types into the Greek population which by then had highly intermarried with darker ethnotypes and lost their earlier appearances.

It is a matter of considerable scholarly debate whether the biblical " Hittites " signified any or all of: 1 ) the original Hattians ; 2 ) their Indo-European conquerors ( Nesili ), who retained the name " Hatti " for Central Anatolia, and are today referred to as the " Hittites " ( the subject of this article ); or 3 ) a Canaanite group who may or may not have been related to either or both of the Anatolian groups, and who also may or may not be identical with the later Neo-Hittite ( Luwian ) polities.

Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia ( modern-day Turkey ) have been dated to around 6000 BC.

This tale might have been intended only to explain why Madai was the only son of Japheth whose descendants, the Medes, did not live in Anatolia, the islands near it, or the South Caucasus.

It is believed to have been composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.

The earliest known cast lead beads were found in the Çatal Höyük site in Anatolia ( Turkey ), and dated from about 6500 BC, but the metal may have been known earlier.

Although the same parties had previously signed the Treaty of Sèvres, it was rejected before it had been ratified, by the Turkish national movement led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who fought against the terms of the treaty and the occupation of Anatolia.

The alliance was initially backed by Persia, whose lands in Anatolia had been invaded by Sparta and which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia.

The myths involving Jason have been interpreted by specialists as part of a class of myths that tell how the Hellenes of the distant heroic age, before the Trojan War, faced the challenges of the pre-Greek " Pelasgian " cultures of mainland Greece, the Aegean and Anatolia.

They were made from Obsidian that had been transported from Anatolia

Theodore returned to Anatolia, in what seems to have been a sort of self-imposed exile.

In 1146 Manuel assembled his army at the military base Lopadion and set out on a punitive expedition against Masud the Sultan of Rûm, who had been repeatedly violating the frontiers of the Empire in western Anatolia and Cilicia.

A cultivated cherry is recorded as having been brought to Rome by Lucius Licinius Lucullus from northeastern Anatolia, modern day Turkey, also known as the Pontus region, in 72 BC.

In the peace agreement ( the Peace of Lysimachia ), Antiochus III formally takes possession of southern Syria, which has been fought over for 100 years by the Ptolemies and Seleucids, and also takes possession of the Egyptian territories in Anatolia.

Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the " kingdom of Kheta " mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites.

The name Hetto-Iberian ( or Proto-Iberian ) was proposed by Georgian historian Simon Janashia for a superfamily comprising the South Caucasian languages, other Caucasian language groups, Hattic and other languages of ancient Anatolia.

* Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline, a proposed gas pipeline across Anatolia

Alarodian is a proposed connection between Northeast Caucasian and the extinct Hurro-Urartian languages of Anatolia.

) Pulak's proposed LHIIIA / B boundary would make LHIIIB contemporary in Anatolia with the resurgent Hittites following Mursili's eclipse ; in Egypt with the 19th Dynasty, also known as the Ramessides ; and in northern Mesopotamia with Assyria's ascendancy over Mitanni.

However, the Assuwa League included Karkija ( Caria ), in southwest Anatolia, south of even the proposed Lukka ( Lycia ).