Anatolian Tigers

Anatolian Tigers (Turkish: Anadolu Kaplanları) is a term internationally used in the context of the Turkish economy to refer to and to explain the phenomenon of a number of cities in Turkey which have displayed impressive growth records since the 1980s, as well as to a defined new breed of entrepreneurs rising in prominence and who can often be traced back to the cities in question and who generally rose from the status of SMEs.

Where particular cities are concerned, the term is most often used for the capitals or depending centers of Denizli, Gaziantep, Kayseri, Bursa, Konya, Kocaeli, Kahramanmaraş. Within Turkey, the accent is laid on cities that have received little state investments or subsidies over the years. Çorum, Denizli, Gaziantep and Kahramanmaraş, in particular, are cited among the cities who "made it themselves". In time order, while Denizli in Turkey's Aegean Region was the early hour precursor for rapid growth in an Anatolian Tiger pattern,Gaziantep, Malatya, Konya and Kayseri are the most recently cited prominent Tigers on the basis of the number of companies they have among Turkey's 500 biggest. These largest are the forerunners of further large companies and a multitude of smaller ones.

Aside from their production units, the definition generally excludes companies who have their headquarters in the largest cities of Turkey; namely İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa and Adana, as well as companies constituted with public capital.

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