Turkey was already one of the most populous nations in Europe, and the country's population increased in 2011, by more than one million since the previous year, a report indicated on Friday.
According to a report released on Friday by the official Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), Turkey's population was 74,724,269 at the end of 2011. The study was conducted through the Address-Based Central Population Registration System (MERNİS), which uses the National Address Database to track the number of people living at a specific address, Today's Zaman reported.
Turkey's population increased by 1.35 percent, when compared to the previous year, to 74.7 million by the end of 2011. The figure was 73.7 million at the end of 2010. Males made up 50.2 percent of Turkey's total population while 49.8 percent was female. There are 37,532,954 men and 37,191,315 women in Turkey's population.
According to the results, 76.8 percent of the population lives in urban areas, provincial capitals and districts. While 57,385,706 people live in urban areas, 17,338,563 live in the country's rural areas.
İstanbul has Turkey's largest population, with 13,624,240 people. İstanbul also takes the lead in terms of urbanization, as 99 percent of the province's population lives in city centers. The city of İstanbul also provides a home for 18.2 percent of the total population. The northern province of Bayburt has the smallest population, at 76,724. In addition, İstanbul also takes the lead with 2,622 people per square kilometer in terms of population density.
There are 50,346,979 people in Turkey between the ages of 15 and 64, or 67.4 percent of the total population. There are 18,886,575 people between the ages of 0 and 14. People who are age 60 and older make up 7.3 percent, or 5,490,715 people, of the total population.