Turkey’s population numbered 83.15 million as of end of 2019, indicating a 1.39 percent rise year-on-year, and İstanbul maintained its rank as the largest city of the country with some 15.5 million residents, adding some 500,000 people, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) announced on Tuesday.
According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, Turkey’s population grew by 1.15 million people from the previous year.
Men accounted for 50.2 percent of the total population, while women made up 49.8 percent, the institute said.
“The proportion of the working age population aged 15-64 increased from 66.5% in 2007 to 67.8% in 2019,” according to the TurkStat statement.
“Accordingly, the proportion of child population aged 0-14 decreased from 26.4% to 23.1%, proportion of population aged 65 and over increased from 7.1% to 9.1%.”
The median age of the country’s population was 32.4 as of the end of 2019, up from 32 in 2018.
Some 92.8 percent of Turkey’s population is living in cities and district centers – up 0.5 percentage points annually – versus 7.2 percent in towns and villages.
Turkey’s population density – the number of people per square kilometer – reached 107 last year.
The population of İstanbul, the most heavily populated city, rose by 451,543 to reach over 15.5 million residents as of the end of 2019. The city makes up 18.66 percent of Turkey’s total population.
“Number of people per square kilometer is 107 for Turkey and 2,987 for İstanbul,” the institute said.
İstanbul was was followed by the capital Ankara with 5.64 million inhabitants and the Aegean province of İzmir with 4.37 million.
Bursa, a key industrial province, was Turkey’s fourth-biggest city by population with 3.05 million residents, and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya came in fifth with 2.5 million.
Located in eastern Turkey, Tunceli was the least-populous province with 84,660 people, followed by the northeastern city of Bayburt (88,843) and Ardahan in the northeast (97,319).
