Road stories
A short history of turkish highways
Mehmet Arif Demirer Mechanical Engineer, B.A. 1961, M.A. 1964 Cambridge (UK), Author of The Historical Development of Highway/Railroad Ratio in Turkey, 1923 - 2015 (to be published in 2016)
Illustrations 1 to 6 © Author, illustrations 7 and 8 © Mrs Figen Aydogdu, Director, Public Relations Section, General Directorate of Highways
When the Turkish Republic was proclaimed on 29th October 1923, there were 18 thousand kilometres of roads on 78 million hectares of land. These were in very poor state and needed urgent repairs for sustainable traffic. There were almost no all-weather roads in the country.