The Pontus Mountains also called the North Anatolian Mountains in the north are an interrupted chain of folded highlands that generally parallel the Black Sea coast. In the west, the mountains tend to be low, with elevations rarely exceeding 1, meters, but they rise in an easterly direction to heights greater than 3, meters south of Rize. Lengthy, troughlike valleys and basins characterize the mountains. Rivers flow from the mountains toward the Black Sea.
The southern slopes--facing the Anatolian Plateau--are mostly unwooded, but the northern slopes contain dense growths of both deciduous and evergreen trees. Paralleling the Mediterranean coast, the Taurus Toros Daglari is Turkey's second chain of folded mountains. The range rises just inland from the coast and trends generally in an easterly direction until it reaches the Arabian Platform, where it arcs around the northern side of the platform.
Frequently interspersed throughout the folded mountains, and also situated on the Anatolian Plateau, are well-defined basins, which the Turks call ova. Some are no more than a widening of a stream valley; others, such as the Konya Ovasi, are large basins of inland drainage or are the result of limestone erosion.
Most of the basins take their names from cities or towns located at their rims. Where a lake has formed within the basin, the water body is usually saline as a result of the internal drainage--the water has no outlet to the sea. Stretching inland from the Aegean coastal plain, the Anatolian Plateau occupies the area between the two zones of the folded mountains, extending east to the point where the two ranges converge.
The plateau-like, semiarid highlands of Anatolia are considered the heartland of the country. The region varies in elevation from to 1, meters from west to east.
Both basins are characterized by inland drainage. This mountainous region lies at the center of the Arabian, African, Eurasian, Aegean and Turkish tectonic plates: the resulting landscape is dotted with volcanoes today extinct and regular earthquakes.
The central plateau is composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs filled by shallow salt lakes. Elevations on the plateau itself range from 1, to 3, ft to 1, m. This increases to the east, where the two mountain ranges, the Taurus and Pontic, join to form the eastern highlands including the highest mountain peaks in Turkey such as Mount Ararat.
The two largest basins on the plateau are the Konya Ovasi and the basin occupied by Tuz Golu Salt Lake —both drain large inland areas and have no external outlet.
Other parts of the plateau are drained either by short rivers that flow south into the Mediterranean, or by several larger rivers notably the Halys and the Sakarya that drain northward into the Black Sea. The earth in these areas is colored a variety of grays and reds. The plateau is mostly dry with a mixture of dark and desert soils. Summers here are hotter and drier than in the rest of Anatolia, but also colder and wetter in the winter, with temperatures averaging freezing and frequent heavy snows.
Wooded areas are confined to the northwest and northeast, and cultivation wheat and barley is restricted to narrow river valleys.
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