Asia Minor

Asia Minor (Anatolia) Great peninsula of w Asia making up most of modern Turkey. The Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles divide both Turkey and Europe from Asia. Apart from a very narrow coastal plain, the area is a high, arid plateau. In the se, the Taurus Range rises to more than 3750m (12,000ft). The area has been inhabited since the Bronze Age, with civilizations such as Troy. The Hittites established a kingdom here in c.1800 bc. From the 8th century bc, the Greeks established colonies in the area; the Persians invaded in the 6th century bc and the Persian Wars followed. Alexander the Great's empire included this region, although it split into several states after his death. The Romans unified the area in the 2nd century ad. by the 6th century it had become part of the Byzantine empire. In the 13th–15th centuries it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks and remained part of the Ottoman Empire until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.