Every country has its own customs. Turkey is no different. So before visiting Turkey we would like to give you some insight into Turkish culture and customs.

Turkey is at its heart a Muslim country. Although it has a very distinct international and even cosmopolitan flavour - especially in the big cities and holiday resort areas - the customs in Turkey are strongly influenced by tradition.

During Ottoman times customs in Turkey were highly developed and formal. Ottoman customs placed great emphasis on politeness. Although people today are more informal in their dealings, some traditional Turkish customs still survive. It is Turkish custom to use the dozens of set phrases of politeness in many situations and the more one uses these better.

Wool on wool (wool pile and wool warps and wefts): This is generally the least expensive type of carpet, but often the most "authentic" if such a word can be used. Wool on wool carpets have been made much longer and use more traditional designs than the other types of carpets. Because wool cannot be spun finely, the knot count is often not very high, compared to wool on cotton and silk on silk. High knot count is also not necessary for wool on wool carpets because they are often traditional geometric designs, or otherwise non-intricate patterns.

The Turkish bath (Turkish; hamam) is the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath, which can be categorized as a wet relative of the sauna. The Turkish baths have played an important role in cultures of the Middle-East, serving as places of social gathering, ritual cleansing, and as architectural structures, institutions, and (later) elements with special customs attached to them. Europeans learned about the Hamam via contacts with the Ottomans, hence the "Turkish" part of the name.

Turkish dance refers to the folk dances of Turkey. On the border between Europe and the Middle East, facing three seas, straddling important trade routes, Turkey has an ancient and complicated culture, reflected in the variety of its dances. However its dance traditions are dominated by the influence of the Ottoman Empire. The dominant dance forms are types of line dance.