News Regions Map
These are the subregions that represent how the work of news is usually divided. Click any country to highlight its region.
News regions — context and background
Why is Turkey in “The Middle East”?
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Turkey is grouped with the Middle East in most news bureau structures for a combination of historical, geographical, and editorial reasons.
The Ottoman legacy: For roughly 600 years (1299–1922), the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in the world, and Istanbul (then Constantinople) was its capital. At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, the empire controlled virtually the entire territory we now call the Middle East — including modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Egypt and much of North Africa. Turkey is therefore not merely a neighbour of the Middle East; it was, for centuries, its political and administrative centre.
Geography: About 97% of Turkey’s landmass (Anatolia) is in Asia, directly bordering Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and the Black Sea. Only the small Thrace region, including part of Istanbul, lies in Europe. Geographically, Turkey sits at the junction of Europe, the Caucasus, and the Levant.
Editorial and bureau logic: News agencies such as AP and Reuters cover Turkey from their Mideast desks because the stories overlap: Turkish foreign policy is deeply entangled with Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, and Iranian affairs. Major ongoing stories — the Syrian civil war, Kurdish autonomy movements, Iraq reconstruction, Iran sanctions — all have Turkey as a key actor, making it impractical to separate Turkey into a “European” bureau.
The complication: Turkey is simultaneously a NATO member (since 1952), a long-standing EU candidate, a member of the Council of Europe, and competes in UEFA and Eurovision. Many Turks identify culturally with Europe, and Turkish politics since Atatürk’s reforms in the 1920s has been oriented toward Western institutions. This dual identity — geographically and historically Asian/Middle Eastern, politically and aspirationally European — is one reason Turkey often appears in discussions about where regional boundaries should be drawn.
The Ottoman legacy: For roughly 600 years (1299–1922), the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful states in the world, and Istanbul (then Constantinople) was its capital. At its height in the 16th and 17th centuries, the empire controlled virtually the entire territory we now call the Middle East — including modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula, as well as Egypt and much of North Africa. Turkey is therefore not merely a neighbour of the Middle East; it was, for centuries, its political and administrative centre.
Geography: About 97% of Turkey’s landmass (Anatolia) is in Asia, directly bordering Syria, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, and the Black Sea. Only the small Thrace region, including part of Istanbul, lies in Europe. Geographically, Turkey sits at the junction of Europe, the Caucasus, and the Levant.
Editorial and bureau logic: News agencies such as AP and Reuters cover Turkey from their Mideast desks because the stories overlap: Turkish foreign policy is deeply entangled with Syrian, Iraqi, Kurdish, and Iranian affairs. Major ongoing stories — the Syrian civil war, Kurdish autonomy movements, Iraq reconstruction, Iran sanctions — all have Turkey as a key actor, making it impractical to separate Turkey into a “European” bureau.
The complication: Turkey is simultaneously a NATO member (since 1952), a long-standing EU candidate, a member of the Council of Europe, and competes in UEFA and Eurovision. Many Turks identify culturally with Europe, and Turkish politics since Atatürk’s reforms in the 1920s has been oriented toward Western institutions. This dual identity — geographically and historically Asian/Middle Eastern, politically and aspirationally European — is one reason Turkey often appears in discussions about where regional boundaries should be drawn.