The Department of Geography was established in the 1994-1995 educational year. A diploma (graduate) student has to take minimum 136 credits for graduation with compulsory and selective courses mostly from the department program and some from other departments’ programs. The Department of Geography also has a Master of Art (MA) Program.

The main aims of the Department of Geography are as follows:

• to equip the geography students with scientific knowledge and research methods so that they can understand the physical, social, cultural, political and economical features of both the world and the country, and make their preliminary synthesis studies on these topics;
• to perform scientific studies dealing with the natural process and the spatial and temporal relationships in the physical environment;
• to study the spatial and temporal aspects of social and economic activities;
• to study the linkages between the human activities and natural systems, etc.

 Main research areas:

• Observed climate change and variability;
• Synoptic climatology (weather types; atmospheric teleconnection patterns; etc.);
• Urbanization and land use problems;
• Groundwater and precipitation climatology;
• Regional and local geomorphology;
• National and global climate policies (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol, and related issues);
• Political and election geography;
• Population and settlement geography;
• Geography of industry and agriculture;
• Cultural geography;
• Eurasia geography (i.e., Former Soviet Unions), etc.

Department of Geography consists of following main scientific branches: Physical Geography, Human and Economic Geography and Geography of Turkey. Acabemic staff consist of 1 professor, 2 associate professor, 3 assistant professor and 5 research assistants. Total number of graduate students is about 210 and total number of MA students is 11.