Population of Turkey – Facts & Figures
Population
Since the founding of the Republic in 1923, the population of Turkey has grown rapidly. In 1927 just under 14 million people lived in Turkey, in 2003 it was just under 70 million (see chart), and in 2019 it was 82 million. Turkey is at the same time a country of emigration and immigration. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, millions of Turks left their country as labour migrants (“guest workers”) or political refugees and went, for example, to Germany, Belgium, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. Above all, minorities left Turkey, such as Arameans, Alevis, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds, Jews, Yazidis and Zaza. On the other hand, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, resettlers came to the Republic from the Balkans, Greece, the Middle East, Iran, Central Asia and Crimea.
In 2009 about 4,600 Germans chose Turkey as their new adopted home, out of a total of around 155,000 German emigrants. Besides the climate and beautiful landscapes, the low cost of living and relatively few bureaucratic hurdles in particular are considered factors encouraging immigration.
In 2019 there were 4.8 million refugees in Turkey, most of them displaced by the Syrian civil war, Kurds from Iraq and Armenians from Armenia.
Turkey was thus the country with the highest number of refugees in the world.
In 2019, 6 % of the population were migrants or refugees.
The population figures of Turkey in selected years are listed below:
Year
Population
Change
11.46 %
5.86 %
20.14 %
11.84 %
7.45 %
10.29 %
−3.17 %
5.44 %
1.32 %
11.48 %
4.48 %
14.88 %
1.21 %
15.33 %
1.38 %
13.10 %
1.34 %
13.42 %
1.37%
13.32 %
1.34%
10.88 %
1.33%
13.25 %
Population distribution by age group:
0–4
Men
Women
5–9
10–14
15–19
20–24
25–29
30–34
35–39
40–44
45–49
50–54
55–59
60–64
65–69
70–74
75–79
80–84
85–89
90+
Peoples
Group
Share
Turks
71.4 %
Kurds
12.5 %
Zazas
3.9 %
Circassians
3.3 %
Bosniaks
2.6 %
Albanians
1.7 %
Georgians
1.3 %
Arabs
1.1 %
Others
1.9 %
Distribution in percent
The ethnic composition of the population in Turkey cannot be determined exactly. Ethnic affiliation is no longer recorded in official censuses. Mother tongue and second language are recorded instead, although the figures for many minorities are declining sharply as a result of Turkish assimilation policy. In addition, the most diverse ethnic groups have been mixing for centuries, so that assigning people to one ethnic group is often difficult. The figures on ethnic groups differ greatly depending on which sources are used.
According to these, the following ethnic groups live in Turkey: 70 to 81 % Turks, 9 to 14 % Kurds, 4 % Zazas, 2 % Circassians, 2 % Bosniaks, 1.5 % Arabs, 1 % Albanians, 1 % Laz, 0.1 % Georgians, as well as various other ethnic groups and nationalities such as Armenians/Hemshin, Bulgarians/Pomaks, Arameans, Chechens, Greeks/Pontic Greeks, Jews and Roma.
In 1914 there were about 1.3 million Armenians[24] with Armenian as their mother tongue in the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the genocide of 1915 to 1917 and the expulsions, their number has fallen to about 40,000. In addition, there are about 70,000 illegal Armenian immigrants.[25]
The population group of the Turks is defined in different ways. Since 1965 the Turkish government has included population groups that other sources partly regard as members of other Turkic peoples. This concerns about 600,000 Azerbaijanis, up to 200,000 each of Meskhetians and Turkmens, about 15,000 Gagauz, about 1,000 each of Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Kumyks, Uzbeks and 500 Uyghurs.