Turkey population rises by more than one million in a year

ISTANBUL

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Turkey’s population rose by over 1 million people in 2015 compared to the previous year, officially reaching 78,741,053, according to statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).

TÜİK’s “Results of Address-Based Population Registration System” study released on Jan. 28 also showed that 39.5 million people (50.2 percent of the total) were males, while 39.2 million people (49.8 percent of the total) were females.

As a result, Turkey’s annual population growth rate increased to 13.4 per thousand in 2015, up from 13.3 per thousand in 2014.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Turks living in urban areas, which was 91.8 percent in 2014, increased to 92.1 percent in 2015. 

The most populated province in the country remained Istanbul, home to 14.66 million Turkish citizens, or 18.6 percent of the total population. Ankara followed Istanbul with 5.27 million people, or 6.7 percent of the population. İzmir province was next biggest with 4.17 million people, or 5.3 percent of the population, followed by Bursa with 2.84 million (3.6 percent) and Antalya with 2.29 million people (2.9 percent).

The least populated province was Bayburt with 78,550 inhabitants, said the Turkstat data.


Median age rises to 31

In addition, the median age of Turkey’s population rose again, from 30.7 in 2014 to 31 in 2015.
The median age was 30.4 for males and 31.6 for females in 2015. The provinces with the highest median ages were Sinop with 39.3, Balıkesir with 38.8, and Kastamonu with 38.3. The provinces with the lowest median ages were Şanlıurfa with 19.3, Şırnak with 19.5, and Ağrı with 20.3 percent.

Population in working age group unchanged

According to the TÜİK data, the proportion of Turkish citizens in the “15-64 working age group” was 67.8 percent in 2015, a total of 53.36 million people.

The proportion of children aged 0-14 dropped to 24 percent, or 18.9 million people. The proportion of the people aged 65 and over increased to 8.2 percent, or 6.5 million people.


Population density per square kilometer rises

Population density, indicating the number of people per square kilometer in the country, rose by one person compared to 2014, reaching 102.

The province with the highest number of people per square kilometer was Istanbul with 2,821, far ahead of closest rival Kocaeli, which had 493 people per square kilometer. They were followed by İzmir with 347 and Gaziantep with 283 people per square kilometer. The eastern province of Tunceli had the lowest population density in Turkey, with just 12 people per square kilometer. 

The population density of Konya, which is the province with the largest surface area in the country, was 55 people per square kilometer, while the population density of Yalova, which has the smallest surface area in the country, was 275 people per square kilometer.