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Various geographic characteristics, climate
variety, caused by geographical differences, being
a natural bridge between three continents, caused
Anatolia
Peninsula
to have a rarely encountered vegetation in the world.
While vegetation number, present in all along Europe
is a total of 12.000, this figure is 9.000 in our
country.
Our country is superior than Europe according to
vegetation variety. Because our country is not only
superior than Europe in connection with endemic
plants which grow only a certain region or whose
homeland is a certain region in the world but also
one of the a few regions of the world. While endemic
plant number of Europe is 2.750 this number equals
to 3.000 in our country. Endemic plant number is
only 600 in Antalya. Total plant number of England
is 2.000. (9.000 in our country). It is known that
one of the Mediterranean states, Spain as well as
Former Yugoslavia have 500 endemic plants each.
It is known that Bulgaria has 3.650, Greece 5.000,
Cyprus 2.000, Syria - Lebanon 3.500, Iraq 4.000,
Iran 8.000, France 4.500, Germany 2.500, Italy 5.600,
Spain 5.000, Romania, 3.400, England 2.000, Hungry
2.214, Island 377 and Norway 1.715 plants on the
basis of total plant number.
3 city of our country which have most endemic plants
are Antalya with 578, Konya with 478 and İçel with
366. As you can see city of Antalya is richer than
countries such as Spain and Former Yugoslavia. It
can easily be estimated that city of İçel is richer
than most of the European countries in connection
with Endemic (and Non - Endemic) plant richness.
If Antalya and İçel are thought together, it can
be easily found that this two city become unrivalled
against European countries with their plant potential.
Europe's most endemic plant owning country except
Turkey, Greece has 800 endemic plants. Rival country,
Italy's endemic plant number is 712. Endemic plant
number of Japan is 2.000, USA's 4.036 and Switzerland's
is 1. As it can be considered that cities of our
country can be compared with countries of Europe
but Europe continent is poorer than Turkey as a
total.
One of the most important reason for plant richness
of Turkey is being Anatolia a shelter for plants
during ice age. Today Turkey is at the intersection
point of 3 different plant area which is not present
in either of the European country. These plant area
are Mediterranean Plant Area (includes Mediterranean
and Aegean regions), European - Siberia Plant Area
(includes Black Sea and Marmara region), Iran -
Turan Plant Area (includes Central Anatolia and
Easter Anatolia regions.).
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