Turkey's top election body updates number of MPs for each province
Turkish parliament has 600 parliamentarian seats. (Photo by Ali Ekeyılmaz)


The Supreme Election Council (YSK) determined the number of parliamentarians that each province will be able to elect in the next elections based on population data of 2019. The updated numbers were published in the Official Gazette on Tuesday.

Dividing a total of 600 parliamentarians among 81 provinces according to the population of each province, the YSK stated that they are obliged to update the numbers within the six months of the initial release of the population data, which was released on Dec. 31, 2019, last year.

With this latest update, the YSK determined that provinces with up to 18 members of Parliament will have one electoral district. Those with 19 to 35 will be divided into two electoral districts. Provinces with more than 36 members of Parliament will have three electoral districts.

As a result of the update, the number of members of Parliament in Istanbul increased from 96 to 98. In southern Antalya province, the number of parliamentarians rose to 17 from 16. However, in other provinces such as the western province of Denizli and the central province of Kırşehir, the numbers were reduced.

The update created three electoral districts in Ankara and Istanbul with 36 and 98 members of Parliament, respectively. Bursa and İzmir, on the other hand, will have two electoral districts with 20 and 28, respectively.