The number of single-person households in Türkiye exceeded 5.3 million in 2024, with Istanbul leading the way for people living alone, totaling 943,363 individuals.
According to data compiled by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), the number of households, which refers to groups of people living at the same address, with or without family ties, was recorded as 26,599,261 as of last year.
According to the report, the number of single-person households in the country has been steadily increasing for the past years.
In 2015, the number of individuals living alone stood at 3,113,496, rising by 203,398 in 2016. The trend continued, drastically reaching almost 3.5 million in 2017, increasing every year and hitting over 4 million in 2019.
A notable increase was observed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. In 2020 alone, the number of solo households grew over 4.4 million, TurkStat noted.
However, the most significant increase in the past decade occurred in 2021, when the number rose by 376,603 to reach 4,781,600.
By 2024, solo households had beaten 5.3 million, marking that over the last decade, the total number of people living alone has grown by 71%, the report also showed that most of these households reside in large cities.
In 2023, Istanbul had the highest number of single-person households, with over 940,000 individuals living alone. It was followed by Ankara with more than 380,000, Izmir with nearly 370,000, Antalya with almost 200,000 and Bursa reaching close to 185,000.
Other cities with significant numbers of single-person households included Adana 123,940, Mersin 119,750, Balıkesir 119,432, Konya 118,166 and Kocaeli 106,912. These 10 major cities accounted for more than half of the total in the country.
The provinces with the lowest numbers of single-person households were Bayburt with 5,754, Ardahan with 6,953 and Hakkari with 8,091.
