Some 67.9% of Türkiye's population resides in urban settlements, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) revealed in its "Urban-Rural Population Statistics 2022" on Thursday.
As of December 2022, over 57 million people live in urban settlements, which constitute 1.6% of Türkiye's total surface area. A total of 17.3% of the country's population resides in rural settlements constituting 93.5% of Türkiye's surface area, and 14.8% of the population lives in medium-density cities that constitute 4.9% of the country's surface area.
According to the data distribution by gender, it was seen that 49.7% of the population residing in urban areas were men, and 50.3% were women – while 51.4% of those living in rural areas were men and 48.6% were women.
The 2022 report also shows that 30.1% of the population aged 65 and over, which constitutes 9.9% of the total population in the country, reside in rural settlements, and 14.6% of older people live in medium-density cities, with 55.3% living in urban areas.
The majority of those living in urban areas are people between the ages of 15-64, which constitutes 68.1% of Türkiye's population, 69.2% of whom live in densely populated areas, 14.7% live in medium-density cities and 16.1% in rural areas respectively.
In addition, in the 0-14 age group, defined as the child population, 69.7% reside in urban areas, 15.3% in medium-dense urban and 15% in rural areas.
According to Address Based Population Registration System Results (ABPRS) 2022, it was seen that 96.4% of the residents of Istanbul, which is the province with the highest population, live in settlements classified as dense urban, 2.7% in medium-dense urban and 0.9% in rural areas.
As for Ankara, 88.3% of the residents of the second-largest province population-wise in Türkiye live in dense urban areas, 7.6% in medium-dense and 4.1% in rural settlements. Whereas 78.6% of the residents of Izmir, which ranks third in population size, live in dense urban areas, 12.2% in medium-dense and 9.1% in rural settlements.
Regarding the local data, the highest proportion of the population residing in medium-density cities was Artvin at 58.1%, Bayburt at 57.9% and Sinop at 57.3%.
On the other hand, the provinces with the lowest proportion of the population residing in settlements classified as medium-density cities were Kilis at 1.6%, Istanbul at 2.7% and Eskişehir at 6.5%.
Ardahan was the province with the highest proportion of people, with 68.4% living in rural areas. Ardahan was followed by Tunceli with 60.3% and Bartın with 54.2%.
The provinces with the lowest proportion of residents in rural areas were Istanbul at 0.9%, Ankara at 4.1% and Kocaeli at 4.7%.
