By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA 

Turkey's population hit 82 million to reach its highest level ever as of end of 2018, the country's statistical authority said on Friday.

Official figures revealed that the population residing in Turkey increased by 1,193,357 people year-on-year.

"Male population was 41,139,980 people and female population was 40,863,902 people.

"While 50.2 percent of the total population were males, 49.8 percent of the total population were females," TurkStat said.

Fresh data also showed that annual population growth rate increased to 1.47 percent in 2018 from 1.24 in 2017.

"The amount of population in 15-64 working age group increased by 1.4 percent compared to the previous year.

"Accordingly, the proportion of working age group became 67.8 percent, the proportion of children aged 0-14 became 23.4 percent and the proportion of population aged 65 and over became 8.8 percent in 2018," TurkStat said.

Istanbul, most populous city

The institute said 92.3 percent of Turkey’s population lives in the cities and district centers -- down 0.2 percentage points annually -- versus 7.7 percent in the towns and villages.

Turkey's population density -- the number of persons per square kilometer -- surged 2 persons on a yearly basis to reach 107 last year.

With over 15 million people or 18.4 percent of the country's total population, Istanbul was Turkey's most populous city as of last year's end.

The country's world-famous metropolis was followed by the capital Ankara with 5.5 million inhabitants and the Aegean province of Izmir with 4.3 million people. 

Bursa, a prominent industrial center, was the fourth-biggest city by population with nearly 3 million inhabitants, and the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya came in fifth with 2.4 million people.

Located in northeastern Turkey, Bayburt was the country's least populous province with 82,274 people, followed by the eastern city of Tunceli (88,198) and Ardahan in the northeast (98,907).