Is Turkey Now Called Türkiye?
Is Turkey now called Türkiye? Yes. Here is when the name officially changed, why it happened, and how to pronounce it, with the dates that matter.
If you have been reading about the country online lately, you have probably noticed two spellings floating around. Some sites still say “Turkey”, others write “Türkiye”, and a few mix both in the same paragraph. So the obvious question follows: is Turkey now called Türkiye, and did the name actually change, or is this just a stylistic preference somebody decided to push?
Yes. The country’s official international name is now Türkiye (pronounced roughly “tur-key-YAY”). The change was set in motion by a December 2021 presidential decree, then formalized at the United Nations on 31 May 2022 and announced publicly on 3 June 2022. So in every official context the country is now Türkiye, not Turkey. That said, “Turkey” has not been banned and most everyday English speakers still say it, so you will keep seeing both for years.
So is Turkey now called Türkiye, or not?
Both things are true at once, which is why this confuses people. Officially, yes, the name is Türkiye. In casual English, plenty of people, news outlets, and even guidebooks still write “Turkey”, and nobody is going to correct you for it.
The short version: the government rebranded the country’s English name, the UN accepted it, and over time the official spelling has spread to maps, sports federations, airlines, and export labels. The word you grew up with did not disappear overnight. It just stopped being the formal, on-paper version.
If you came here with other “wait, what changed?” questions about the country and its biggest city, our FAQ section tackles a lot of them in the same plain way.
When did the name officially change to Türkiye?
Here is the timeline, because the dates get muddled in most write-ups:
- December 2021. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a circular instructing state bodies to use “Türkiye” in official correspondence, and a “Hello Türkiye” promotional campaign was launched. This is when “made in Türkiye” started replacing “made in Turkey” on exported goods.
- 31 May 2022. The Turkish government formally registered the change with the United Nations. The letter from the foreign minister reached the UN Secretary-General around the start of June.
- 3 June 2022. A UN spokesman confirmed the country would be listed as “Türkiye” in the organization’s records, effective immediately.
- 11 July 2022. The International Organization for Standardization updated its ISO 3166 country-name database to reflect Türkiye.
- January 2023. The US State Department said it would use “Türkiye” in most formal diplomatic and official contexts, while noting that “Turkey” stays acceptable as the everyday English name.
So if you want a single headline answer to “when did Turkey become Türkiye”, the cleanest date is the UN registration at the end of May 2022, building on the decree from December 2021.
Why did Turkey change its name to Türkiye?
There are a few reasons, and the government has been pretty open about all of them.
It matches what the country has always called itself. In Turkish, the country has been “Türkiye” since the republic was founded in 1923. The English “Turkey” was an outside spelling, never the local one. So in a sense this was less an invention and more a correction, asking the rest of the world to use the actual name.
The bird problem. This is the part everyone laughs about, and it is real. In English, “turkey” is also a large bird served at holiday dinners, and it doubles as slang for something that flopped or a foolish person. Search “turkey” in an image engine and you get a mix of the country, the poultry, and roast dinners. The government wanted to separate the nation from those associations, and the umlauted “Türkiye” does exactly that.
Branding and tourism. The rebrand landed as travel was bouncing back after the pandemic years, and officials openly framed it as a way to sharpen the country’s image abroad. A distinctive, locally rooted name is easier to market than a word that shares a dictionary entry with a Thanksgiving centerpiece.
None of these reasons is dramatic. Put together, they made a clean case for switching the international spelling to the one locals already use.
How do you pronounce and spell Türkiye?
Spelling first: it is Türkiye, with the dots (an umlaut) over the “u”. If your keyboard cannot produce the “ü”, writing “Turkiye” without the dots is the widely accepted fallback, and you will see it that way constantly.
Pronunciation trips up a lot of English speakers. It is three syllables, not two: tur-key-YAY, with a soft stress on that last “yay” sound. It is not “TUR-kee” like the bird. Get the third syllable in and you are basically there.
Do you have to say “Türkiye” now?
No. In conversation, on a postcard, or in a casual email, “Turkey” is completely fine and nobody local will be offended. The change governs official and formal usage, not how you chat about your holiday.
Where you will increasingly run into “Türkiye” is on government sites, the national airline’s branding, sports kits and federation listings, export packaging, and a growing share of maps and apps. Big English-language newsrooms have been slower and many still print “Turkey”, so the two names will coexist in everyday English for a good while yet. Practically speaking, recognize both, and use whichever fits your context.
If the name question got you curious about how the country’s biggest city got its modern name, the story behind why Istanbul is not Constantinople is a good companion read, and what Istanbul was called before Constantinople goes back even further.
Does the name change affect travel, visas, or your passport?
Not in any way that should worry you. Your existing documents, visas, and tickets that say “Turkey” remain valid. The country is the same country, the borders are the same, and an e-visa issued under either spelling refers to the same place. If you are sorting out entry paperwork, our guide to getting a visa for Istanbul walks through the current process regardless of which spelling appears on the form.
For first-time visitors trying to get oriented, it is also worth knowing where Istanbul actually sits (straddling Europe and Asia) and skimming a few Istanbul travel tips before you go. The name on the map may have shifted, but the country behind it, the food, the history, the two-continent geography, is exactly as good as it was when everyone still typed “Turkey”.
The bottom line
Is Turkey now called Türkiye? Officially, yes, since the UN registered the change at the end of May 2022, following the December 2021 decree. In casual English, “Turkey” is still everywhere and still acceptable. So the honest answer is that the country has one official name (Türkiye) and one stubborn old habit (Turkey), and for now both are simply part of life. Recognize both, lean on “Türkiye” when you want to be correct, and do not lose sleep over which one you say out loud.
