Born in İzmir in 1937, Prof. Dr. İlhan Tekeli completed İzmir Atatürk Lisesi in 1955. He graduated from Istanbul Technical University, Department of Civil Engineering in 1960. He received his master's degree from the Department of City and Regional Planning at the Middle East Technical University in 1964 and the Department of Regional Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. In 1968, Tekeli graduated from Istanbul Technical University with a doctorate degree. In 1970, he started to his academic career at METU Department of City and Regional Planning. In 1991, he was one of the founders of the History Foundation and became the president in his early years. He was elected to the Turkish Academy of Sciences membership in 1995. He resigned as the government began to interfere with the election of the academic members. He was then among the founding members of the Academy of Sciences. He won Sedat Simavi Social Sciences, Mustafa Parlar Social Sciences, Mustafa Parlar Education, Sakıp Sabancı Social Sciences and Architects' Chamber Contribution to Architecture awards thanks to his studies. He conducted studies in the fields such as city and regional planning, migration geography and political behavior, local management theory and economic policy of urbanization in Turkey, Turkish economic history, urban history and society and published numerous works on these fields. He has 110 books and 650 publications. His works were published as Collective Work in 25 volumes by the History Foundation.
