Gokhan Ergocun
February 04, 2021•Update: February 04, 2021
ISTANBUL
Turkey's population exceeded 83.6 million as of 2020-end, with a 0.55% rise on an annual basis, the Turkish statistical authority said on Thursday.
The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data showed that the population residing in Turkey last year increased by 459,365 people compared to the previous year.
"Male population was 41,915,985 people and female population was 41,698,377 people," the institute said.
The share of men in the total population was 50.1%, while women made up 49.9%, according to TurkStat.
Official data said annual population growth rate was 0.55% in 2020, down from 1.39% in 2019.
The institute also said the foreign population residing in the country was down by 197,770 people to 1.33 million, of which 49.7% were males.
"The proportion of the working age population aged 15-64 increased from 66.5% in 2007 to 67.7% in 2020," it said.
"On the other hand, the proportion of child population aged 0-14 decreased from 26.4% to 22.8% and the proportion of population aged 65 and over increased from 7.1% to 9.5%."
The median age of the country's population was 32.7 as of the end of 2020, up from 32.4 in 2019.
TurkStat describes the median age as "the age of the person in the middle of the ages of all the people in the population, from newborns to the oldest elderly person".
Population density reaches 109
Some 93% of Turkey’s population are living in cities and district centers – up 0.2 percentage point annually – versus 7% in towns and villages.
Turkey's population density – the number of people per square kilometer – surged on a yearly basis to reach 109 last year.
The population of Istanbul, the most crowded city, decreased 56,815 people to reach 15.46 million people as of 2020-end. The city makes up 18.49% of Turkey's total population.
"Istanbul had the highest population density with 2,976 persons per square kilometer," the institute said.
The world-famous metropolis was followed by the capital Ankara with 5.66 million inhabitants and the Aegean province of Izmir with 4.39 million people.
Bursa, a key industrial province, was Turkey's fourth-biggest city by population with 3.1 million inhabitants, and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya came fifth with 2.55 million.
Turkey's northeastern province of Bayburt was the least-populous province with 81,910 people, followed by the eastern province of Tunceli (83,443), and Ardahan in the northeast (96,161).
