Of Turkey’s 87 mainly state owned airports with paved runways, 16 have runways longer than 3,000 meters. Some 14 heliports were in operation in 2004. The three largest airports are located at Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. Istanbul Ataturk, the largest airport, was expanded in 2000, as was the primary tourist airport at Ankara. The state owned national airline, Turk Hava Yollari (THY, Turkish Airlines), is a state controlled enterprise that flies from Ankara and Istanbul to 79 international destinations, including major cities in Europe and the United States.

Turkey has about 1,200 kilometers of inland waterways, none of which offers a vital line of transportation. Not included in that amount is the channel formed by the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus, linking the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea and forming one of the most important water connections in the world.

Roads are Turkey’s most important domestic transportation system, although only 130,000 kilometers of paved roads were in service in 2004, and little expansion has occurred since the 1950s. More than 250,000 kilometers of existing roads are unpaved. The state and provincial system includes about 65,000 kilometers of roads, of which 1,900 kilometers are classified as highways. Main highways radiate from Ankara in central Anatolia; Istanbul and Izmir in the west; Adana in the south; and Erzurum and Diyarbakır in the east.

The most important recent addition to the system is the Ankara-Istanbul toll road. Because the number of motor vehicles increased by more than 5 million, Turkey’s city streets are very congested, several major road and bridge projects were under discussion to link Anatolia more effectively with Europe.