Turkey’s population has topped 84.5 million, according to TurkStat

* Photo: Pixabay

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the state agency responsible for producing official statistics on Turkey, has shared the results of the address-based population registration system for 2021.

According to TurkStat, the population residing in Turkey increased by 1 million 65 thousand 911 people compared to the previous year, and reached 84 million 680 thousand 273 people as of December 31, 2021.

The data has shown that male population of the country was 42 million 428 thousand 101 people and the female population was 42 million 252 thousand 172 people. While 50.1 percent of the total population were males, 49.9 percent of the total population were females.

According to the results of the Address Based Population Registration System (ABPRS), foreign population* residing in Turkey increased by 458 thousand 626 people and became 1 million 792 thousand 36 people. 49.7 percent of this population were males and 50.3 percent were females.

The annual population growth rate of the country increased to 12.7 per thousand in 2021 from 5.5 per thousand in 2020.

Population of İstanbul: 15.8 million people

The population residing in İstanbul increased by 378 thousand 448 people compared to the previous year and became 15 million 840 thousand 900 people. İstanbul, constituting 18.71 percent of Turkey's population, was followed by Ankara with 5 million 747 thousand 325 inhabitants, İzmir with 4 million 425 thousand 789 inhabitants, Bursa with 3 million 147 thousand 818 inhabitants and Antalya with 2 million 619 thousand 832 inhabitants.

Dersim (Tunceli) was the least populated province with 83 thousand 645 inhabitants. It was followed by Bayburt with 85 thousand 42 inhabitants, Ardahan with 94 thousand 932 inhabitants, Kilis with 145 thousand 826 inhabitants and Gümüşhane with 150 thousand 119 inhabitants.

Median age increased to 33.1

The median age is the age of the person in the middle when the ages of all people in the population are sorted from the new-born baby to the oldest. Median age is also one of the important indicators used in the interpretation of the age structure of the population.

Accordingly, the median age of the population in Turkey increased to 33.1 in 2021 from 32.7 in 2020. When it was analyzed by sex, it was seen by TurkStat that the median age increased from 32.1 to 32.4 for males while it increased from 33.4 to 33.8 for females.

Proportion of population in working age group

The proportion of the working age population aged 15-64 increased from 66.5 percent in 2007 to 67.9 percent in 2021.

On the other hand, the proportion of the child population aged 0-14 decreased from 26.4 percent to 22.4 percent and the proportion of the population aged 65 and over increased from 7.1 to 9.7 percent.

Number of people per square kilometer

The population density, which is the number of persons per square kilometer, increased by 1 person compared to 2020 and reached 110 in 2021.

İstanbul had the highest population density with 3 thousand 49 persons per square kilometer. This province was followed by Kocaeli province with 563 persons and İzmir province with 368 persons.

On the other side, similar to 2020, Dersim was the province which had the smallest population density with 11 persons per square kilometer. This province was followed by Ardahan and Erzincan with 20 persons.

Population density of Konya, which is the province with the largest surface area, was 59 and the population density of Yalova, which is the province with the smallest surface area, was 344 in this period.

(SD)

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* According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the term "foreign population" refers to "individuals who are holding a valid residence/work permit at the reference day and individuals who have a valid address declaration at the reference day while holding an identity document equivalent to residence permit such as international protection identity document and the individuals who have already renounced his/her Turkish Republic citizenship and who have a valid address declaration at the reference day. In addition to Syrians under temporary protection, foreigners holding visas or residence permits shorter than 3 months with the purpose of training, tourism, scientific research, etc. are not covered."