Culture of Turkey

The culture of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye kültürü) or the Turkish culture (Türk kültürü) combines a heavily diverse and heterogeneous set of elements that have been derived from the various cultures of the Eastern European, Eastern Mediterranean, Caucasian, Middle Eastern and Central Asian traditions. Many of these traditions were initially brought together by the Ottoman Empire, a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state spanning across Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

During the early years of the Republic of Turkey, established after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the government invested large sums of resources into fine arts such as architecture and sculpture, and other artistic fields around the country in-line with the newly implemented reformist and West-leaning policies. This was done as part of a process of modernization, westernization, and of creating and outlining a new Turkish cultural identity, rather than the previously established and depicted Ottoman identity.