Turkey Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, and is known to have been in the
Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Eastern Macedonia and Thrace () is one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It consists of the northeastern parts of the country, comprising the eastern part of the region of Greek Macedonia along with the region of Western Thrace, and the islands of Thasos and Samothrace. The region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace was established in the 1987 administrative reform as the Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Region (, "Periféria Anatolikís Makedonías kaí Thrákis"). With the 2010 Kallikratis plan, its powers and authority were redefined and extended, with the preexisting region in many respects inheriting status