Turkish lira
currency of Turkey
The lira (Turkish: Türk lirası; sign: ₺; ISO 4217 code: TRY; abbreviation: TL) is the official currency of Turkey. It is also legal tender in the de facto state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. One lira is divided into one hundred kuruş. The First Turkish lira could be further subdivided, where one kuruş was equal to 40 para.
The current lira is the Second Turkish lira, having succeeded the first Turkish lira in 2005 which in turn succeeded the Ottoman lira in 1923. Since 2018 the Turkish lira has been in crisis, having plummeted in value following Turkish president Erdoğan's economic and political policies.
History
Ottoman lira (1844–1923)
The lira, along with the related currencies of Europe and the Middle East, has its roots in the ancient Roman unit of weight known as the libra which referred to the Troy pound of silver. The Roman libra adoption of the currency spread it throughout Europe and the Near East, where it continued to be used into medieval times. The Turkish lira, the French livre (until 1794), the Italian lira (until 2002), Lebanese pound and the pound unit of account in sterling (a translation of the Latin libra; the word "pound" as a unit of weight is still abbreviated as "lb.") are the modern descendants of the ancient currency.
The lira was introduced as the main unit of account in 1844, with the former currency, kuruş, remaining as a 1⁄100 subdivision.
The public source identifies “Turkish lira” as currency of Turkey. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Turkish, lira and currency.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q172872. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 1923, 2018 and 1844.
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This entry incorporates text from “Turkish lira” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.