In Geography, Turan refers the bulk of the Eurasian landmass including the Russian steppes, Central Asian Turkestan, Mongolia, the Caucasus and other regions where historical Hunnish, Avar, Turkic and Mongol powers held sway, such as Iran and Anatolia. This name was established in the Persian-Turkish literary tradition by Shahnameh, designating the Turkic hordes north of Iran, used in a sense contradictive from the latter. However, the constructed historical name was revived by European (German, Hungarian and Slovak) ethnologists, linguists and Romantics to designate the vast Eurasian area belonging to populations speaking Uralic or Altaic languages. This area is often broadened into including Korea and Japan, whose languages are thought to share fundamental common featuers with Ural-Altaic languages. An idyllic image of the historical nomad Eurasian hordes and Shamanist/Tengri worship have been, and still are, exploited by ultra-right elements from Hungary, Turkey to Japan to galvanize a "Pan-Turanic" sentiment, to a rather mediocre effect. Sometimes Pan-Turanism is used synonymously with the more popular Pan-Turkist movements, which exemplify in many ways, the symbolisms and dynamics of the Pan-Turanist culture.
see: list of Turanism related subjects
In Etruscan mythology, Turan was the goddess of love and vitality and patroness of Vulci (cur: Volci). In art, she was usually depicted as young winged girl. Pigeons and black swans were her sacred animals. Her retinue was called Lasas.
She was equivalent to the Roman Venus and the Greek Aphrodite.
Turan was also the Hungarian tank of the WWII - a total of 424 made in two variants: Turan I with 40 mm gun and Turan II with 75 mm gun.
Paul Turán was also a mathematician most often remembered for his contributions to graph theory; see Turán graph, Turán's theorem.
