What Is Turkey Called Now? Turkey vs Türkiye Explained

The short answer: the country’s official name is now Türkiye. The United Nations registered the change in mid-2022, so in every formal international setting the place you used to know as the Republic of Turkey is now the Republic of Türkiye. In everyday English, plenty of people, news outlets, and even airlines still say “Turkey,” and nobody will correct you on the street. Both refer to exactly the same country, the same capital, the same flag, the same Bosphorus splitting Istanbul in two.

So if you booked a trip years ago as “Turkey” and you are now seeing “Türkiye” on official documents, your e-visa, and the tourism board’s campaigns, relax. Nothing about the country moved. Only the spelling its government wants the world to use has shifted. Let me walk you through what actually happened, when, and why, because the story behind those two dots over the u is more interesting than most people expect.

What is Turkey called now, Turkey or Türkiye?

It is called Türkiye. That has always been the country’s name in the Turkish language. The 2021 to 2022 campaign simply pushed that native spelling out into English and other languages, where the country had been “Turkey” for centuries.

Here is the cleanest way to think about it:

• In Turkish: always Türkiye, full stop. This never changed.
• Official English name (since 2022): Republic of Türkiye.
• Casual English: “Turkey” is still extremely common and not wrong in conversation.

You will notice both versions everywhere. The national flag carrier still trades internationally as Turkish Airlines. Wikipedia, the BBC, and most everyday speakers still write “Turkey.” Meanwhile the UN, NATO, the tourism ministry, and “Made in Türkiye” export labels have switched. So the honest answer to “what is it called now” is: officially Türkiye, popularly still both. If you want the deeper companion piece, I wrote a whole breakdown on whether Turkey is now officially called Türkiye and what that means in practice.

When did Turkey become Türkiye?

The timeline is tighter than people assume, and the key dates are worth knowing if you want to sound informed at a dinner party.

• December 2021: President Erdoğan issued a circular ordering ministries, state bodies, and companies to use “Türkiye” in foreign-language correspondence and on exports.
• 31 May 2022: Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu sent a formal letter to the UN Secretary-General requesting that the country be registered as Türkiye in all languages.
• June 2022: The change took effect the moment the letter was received. The country’s name was used as “Türkiye” at the UN for the first time within days.
• July 2022: The ISO international standards body updated its records.
• January 2023: The US State Department said it would use “Türkiye” in most formal diplomatic contexts, while reserving “Turkey” for things like maps.

So when this post was first written back in 2023, the change was barely a year old and still felt fresh. Years on, the official name is firmly settled, even if old habits in casual English have proven hard to kill.

Why did Turkey change its name to Türkiye?

There are two reasons, and the government leaned harder on the first one in public.

The branding reason. The official line was about national identity. The state said the move would “preserve and glorify the culture and values of our nation” and present the country to the world on its own terms rather than through an anglicized label. Think of it as the country choosing how its own name appears on the global stage.

The bird reason. This is the part everyone remembers. In English, “turkey” is also the large bird served at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Cambridge Dictionary even lists “turkey” as slang for something that fails badly or a foolish person. Officials made no secret that they wanted distance from those associations. There is a tidy bit of history tangled up in it too: the bird got its English name partly because Europeans confused it with guinea fowl that arrived via Ottoman trade routes, so they called the new American bird a “turkey” out of sheer familiarity. The country, in other words, was named first, and the bird borrowed the label by accident.

Either way, the practical upshot is one consistent name in every language, with no awkward double meaning. If you find this kind of national-identity question fascinating, you might also enjoy reading about where Turkish people originally came from, which adds real depth to the cultural story behind the name.

How do you pronounce Türkiye?

This trips up almost every first-time visitor, so let me be specific. Türkiye is pronounced roughly “Tur-kee-YEH,” three syllables, with a soft landing on the end rather than the flat “TUR-kee” of the English word.

The two dots over the u (ü) are not decoration. That ü is a rounded front vowel, the same sound you get in German “über” or French “tu,” somewhere between English “oo” and “ee.” The r is softer than an English r, closer to a light tap. Get the ü right and the rest follows naturally.

One more detail that confuses people: Turkish has both a dotted and a dotless i. When you see the name fully capitalized as TÜRKİYE, that İ keeps its dot on purpose, because in Turkish the dotted İ and the dotless I are genuinely different letters with different sounds. So it is not a typo when you spot that capital İ with a dot.

Does it matter which one you use as a traveler?

Practically, no. Nobody at passport control, in a café in Beyoğlu, or behind a carpet shop counter will mind if you say “Turkey.” The name change is a diplomatic and branding matter, not an etiquette rule aimed at tourists.

That said, a couple of small things are worth knowing on the ground:

• Official sites, your e-visa, and government tourism material will increasingly say Türkiye, so do not be thrown when the spelling looks different from your old guidebook.
• “Türkiye” is now the polite, on-brand choice in writing if you want to mirror how the country presents itself.
• In speech, locals switch comfortably between Türkiye (in Turkish) and Turkey (when speaking English to visitors), so you really cannot get it wrong.

If you are deeper in the planning weeds, my Turkey travel tips cover the things that actually affect your trip far more than spelling does.

A few related questions people ask

The name change tends to send curious travelers down a rabbit hole, and these are the follow-ups I get most:

Is this the same as Istanbul’s name history? No, but they rhyme. Istanbul was once Constantinople, and that is a separate, much older story. I unpack it in why Istanbul is not Constantinople anymore, which is a genuinely good read if the Türkiye question sparked your interest.

Is the country in Europe or Asia? Both, geographically, which is part of what makes it so compelling. The full answer lives in is Turkey considered Europe.

What language do they actually speak? Turkish, of course, and you can read about what language is spoken in Turkey if you want the quick rundown before you go.

And if all of this has you wanting to actually visit rather than just read, I put together my honest case for it in reasons to visit Turkey.

The bottom line

What is Turkey called now? Officially, Türkiye, and has been since the UN registered the change in 2022. In casual English, “Turkey” is still alive and well and perfectly fine to use. It is the same country it has always been: the bridge between two continents, the home of Istanbul, the place where Europe and Asia share a single skyline. Call it Türkiye when you want to match how the country names itself, say Turkey when it rolls off the tongue, and either way, just go. The name is the least interesting thing about it.