 released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Tuesday.){kind=link}
The population density of İstanbul is 26 times higher than the national average, with 15.7 million people living in Turkey’s economic capital, according to a 2024 update to the Address-based Population Registration System (ABPRS) released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) on Tuesday.
The population density in Turkey is 111 people per square kilometer, while İstanbul’s density is 26 times higher than the national average, with 2,934 people per square kilometer, according to the TurkStat data. İstanbul residents make up 18.3 percent of the country’s total population of more than 85 million. The city attracted 45,678 more people last year.
Kocaeli ranks second with 623 people per square kilometer, and Yalova, the province with the smallest surface area, comes third with 390.
In terms of population, İstanbul is followed by the capital, Ankara, with 5.8 million residents, the western provinces of İzmir with 4.4 million and Bursa with 3.2 million, and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya with 2.7 million residents.
The lowest population density, as in the previous year, was recorded in Tunceli, with 11 people per square kilometer. Tunceli was followed by Ardahan (19), Erzincan (21) and Gümüşhane (21). In Konya, the largest province by surface area, the population density stands at 59.
Turkey has long experienced regional disparities in terms of economic development, with the western and coastal regions generally showing higher levels of prosperity compared to the eastern and southeastern regions.
Major cities like İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir, located in these economically advanced areas, attract more population growth due to better job opportunities, higher living standards and infrastructure.
In contrast, regions such as Tunceli, Ardahan and Erzincan, which lag in terms of industrialization and economic investment, tend to have lower population densities. This division is also reflected in the ongoing migration patterns within the country, where people from less developed regions often move to more developed cities in search of better economic prospects, contributing to the population shifts noted in the TurkStat data.
Slight population growth
TurkStat data showed a slight increase in Turkey’s population last year with the addition of 292,567 more people as of December 31, 2023, bringing the total to 85,664,944.
TurkStat data did not reveal how much of the population growth was due to births and how much due to migration.
A total of 42,811,834 people in Turkey are female, representing 49.98 percent of the population, while 42,853,110 are male, making up the remaining 50.02 percent, the TurkStat data showed.
Turkey’s annual population growth rate, which was 1.1 per thousand in 2023, increased to 3.4 per thousand in 2024. A comparison of the population peaks of 2007 and 2024 showed an increase in the elderly population and a rise in the median age due to the decline in fertility and mortality rates.
The median age is the age of the person who falls in the middle when the ages of all individuals in a population are arranged from youngest to oldest. It increased to 34.4 in 2024 from 34 in 2023, TurkStat said. In terms of the distribution among sexes, the median age increased from 33.2 to 33.7 for males, while it increased from 34.7 to 35.2 for females.
According to the results of the ABPRS the number of foreign nationals residing in Turkey decreased by 89,996 year-on-year to 1.48 million in 2024. Of this population, 48.3 percent are male, while 51.7 percent are female.