ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party faces a crucial test in local elections Sunday.
Here are key facts on the Muslim-majority nation that straddles Europe and Asia in a region close to the Middle East, Caucasus, Ukraine and Russia.
GEOGRAPHY: Covering about 780,000 square kilometres (300,000 square miles), Turkey is slightly smaller than Pakistan but larger than Chile or the US state of Texas.
It shares borders with Syria, Iran, Iraq and other countries. With a Black Sea coastline facing Russia, it has been a NATO frontline state for more than 60 years.
POPULATION: The Turkish Statistics Institute (TUIK) put the population at 75.6 million people in early 2013.
CAPITAL: Ankara, with a population of around five million people. Istanbul is the largest city and industrial and commercial hub with more than 15 million people.
RELIGION: Muslim (99 percent): of these, 80 percent Sunni, 20 percent Alevi. Armenians and Jews comprise the largest non-Muslim religious minorities.
RECENT HISTORY: The Republic of Turkey was created as a secular state in 1923 after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I. Its founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was president until his death in 1938. His successor Ismet Inonu introduced multi-party democracy in 1946.
Turkey witnessed military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980. In 1997, an army-led campaign forced the resignation of the country s first Islamist-led government.
Since 1984, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has led an armed rebellion in the Kurdish-majority southeast that has claimed more than 40,000 lives, but there has been a de-facto ceasefire for the past year.
POLITICS: The Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), which describes itself as a conservative democratic movement, came to power in November 2002.
Its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in March 2003 and has ruled since. The AKP won nearly 50 percent of the vote in 2011 elections.
Abdullah Gul has been president since August 28, 2007.
In 2005, Turkey began European Union membership talks, but the process is at a standstill amid a row over Cyprus and opposition to the country s accession among EU members.
ECONOMY: Turkey is one of the most closely watched emerging market economies. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew by an annualised 4.4 percent in the third quarter of 2013, TUIK data showed. The World Bank expects it to expand by 3.5 percent this year.
The Turkish lira has fallen to around 2.18 lira to the dollar at present, in part owing to a general flow of funds out of emerging markets following a US decision to reduce its monetary stimulus programme.
The country has also run up a huge deficit on its external accounts to $65 billion last year, according to central bank figures, which undermines the currency as well.
Inflation stood at 7.48 percent in January, TUIK data shows, while the jobless rate was estimated at 9.3 percent in 2013 according to CIA World Factbook figures.
ARMED FORCES: A NATO member since 1952, Turkey has more than a half million men and women under arms, making it one of the biggest members of the alliance.
Since coming to power, Erdogan s government has reined in the powerful military, once the self-appointed guardians of the secular state.
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