UtdArab Emir Dirham Currency
Introduction
Turkey is officially known as the Republic of Turkey stretching in western Asia across the Anatolian peninsula and Thrace in the Balkan region. Turkey is one of the Turkic states that is independent and is bordered by eight countries namely, Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran and Iraq and Syria.
The official currency of Turkey is the Turkish lira. This currency is subdivided into 100 kuruş. The Turkish lira symbol is TL and the currency code is TRY as per ISO 4217 standards.
The Turkish Lira notes as well as coins have Mustafa Kemal Atatürk portraits denoting different points of his life from1930s on the front side.
History
The lira was first introduced in 1844 replacing the kuruş such that the kuruş circulated as a subdivision of the lira such that 100 kuruş = 1 lira. Until 1930s, the Arabic script was on Turkish coins and banknotes. The kuruş were known as the piaster and the lira as the livre in French as per the European languages.
In the period 1844 and 1881, the turkish lira was bimetallic with 1 lira = 6.61519 grams pure gold = 99.8292 grams pure silver. The gold standard was adopted in 1881 and pursued until 1914.
The gold standard departed after World War I accounting the gold lira = nine lira in paper money by 1920s. Later it was pegged to the French Franc and British pound such that a peg of 2.8 lira = 1 U.S. dollar in 1946 and remained until 1960.
This currency was devalued as 1 dollar = 9 lira. From 1970, hard and soft series were pegged to the dollar, but the value of the lira declined. Severe depreciation was apparent from 1970s to 1990s. In the year 2005, 1 US $ = 1.29 new lira, 2007 – 1 US$ -1.26 new lira, in 2008 – 1 US$ =1.55 new lira, in 2009- 1 US$ = 1.48 new lira and in 2010 – 1US$ = 1.39 lira (as on October 8, 2010)
Banknotes
Banknotes in new series entered circulation from 1 January 2009. This is referred to as E-9 banknotes and includes a new 200 lira denomination. These banknotes come in different sizes preventing forgery.
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