Turkish Lira

The Turkish lira, Türk lirası is the currency of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognised only by Turkey). The Turkish lira is subdivided into 100 kuruş. All obverse sides of current banknotes and reverse sides of current coins have portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Historical banknotes from the second, third and fourth issues have portraits of İsmet İnönü on the obverse side. This change done according to 12 January 1926 dated official gazette and canceled by Democrat Party after World War II.

First Turkish lira After periods pegged to the British pound and the French franc, a peg of 2.8 Turkish lira = 1 U.S. dollar was adopted in 1946 and maintained until 1960, when the currency was devalued to 9 Turkish lira = 1 dollar

From 1970, a series of hard, then soft pegs to the dollar operated as the value of the Turkish lira began to fall. 1966 — 1 U.S. dollar = 9 Turkish lira 1980 — 1 U.S. dollar = 90 Turkish lira 1988 — 1 U.S. dollar = 1300 Turkish lira 1995 — 1 U.S. dollar = 45 000 Turkish lira 2001 — 1 U.S. dollar = 1 650 000 Turkish lira 2005 — 1 U.S. dollar = 1.29 new Turkish lira (The use of New Turkish lira, which drops 6 zeros from the currency Turkish lira, was implemented in 2005) In 2010, the name was changed to Turkish lira, but New Turkish lira was used as currency until 31 December 2009

In the last decade, the Turkish lira stabilized against the U.S. dollar and the euro, although since 2011 it has been losing value steadily. The Guinness Book of Records ranked the Turkish lira as the world's least valuable currency in 1995 and 1996, and again from 1999 to 2004. The Turkish lira had slid in value so far that one original gold lira coin could be sold for 154,400,000 Turkish lira before the 2005 revaluation.

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