This statistic shows the ten biggest cities in Turkey in 2021. At the end of 2021, approximately 15.2 million people lived in Istanbul, making it the biggest city in Turkey.

The urban population of Turkey

The total population of Turkey is on its way to reaching 80 million inhabitants, which is about the same amouint as the population of Germany. Slightly more than half of the Turkish population live in urban areas, with Istanbul being home to the largest portion of this urban population with close to 14 million inhabitants. This is about 20 percent of the entire population.

Istanbul is located at the entrance to the Black Sea, between Europe and Asia. It is attractive to both the people of Turkey as a place to live and work and foreign tourists who take advantage of its cultural and historic center. Due to its attractiveness and its location at the crossroads of the east and the west, the city has been investing in transportation infrastructure to support its strategic location and increasing growth.

Ankara, the capital of Turkey, is the second largest city and home to about 4.5 million people. Izmir is the third largest, with almost 3 million inhabitants. A vast amount of the country’s population is located in these three metropolises.

In 2024, the major city of Istanbul had almost **** million inhabitants and was the province with the highest population in Turkey. The Turkish capital, Ankara, was the second-largest province, with **** million people residing there in the same year. Characteristics of the Turkish population The population of Turkey has been following a continuously increasing trend for a long time. As of 2024, there were approximately **** million people living in the country. That year, the male population was slightly higher than the female population, amounting to over **** million. When it comes to the gender distribution among the age groups, the gender gap was the highest among the 90-year-olds and older. In 2024, women constituted ** percent of that age group, whereas the share of men was slightly higher among 0-to-59-year-olds. Structure of Turkish households The demand for living alone has been increasing in many communities. The case is not much different in Turkey, where the proportion of single households has been on the rise steadily. The share of households with one person peaked in 2024 at nearly ** percent in the country. However, one-family households still registered the highest number of residents as of 2024, with roughly **** million. In comparison, one-person households counted *** million individuals.

Population in largest city in Turkey was reported at 16047350 in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Turkey - Population in largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on October of 2025.

Population in the largest city (% of urban population) in Turkey was reported at 24.09 % in 2024, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Turkey - Population in the largest city - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on October of 2025.

Turkey TR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data was reported at 24.244 % in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 24.452 % for 2016. Turkey TR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data is updated yearly, averaging 21.399 % from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 25.077 % in 2011 and a record low of 16.786 % in 1960. Turkey TR: Population in Largest City: as % of Urban Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Turkey – Table TR.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the percentage of a country's urban population living in that country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; Weighted Average;

İstanbul was by far the most populated city in Turkey in 2023, with almost **** million inhabitants. The capital city of Turkey, Ankara became the second most populated settlement, reaching a population of *** million.

Turkey TR: Population in Largest City data was reported at 14,556,884.000 Person in 2017. This records an increase from the previous number of 14,365,329.000 Person for 2016. Turkey TR: Population in Largest City data is updated yearly, averaging 6,188,484.500 Person from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2017, with 58 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 14,556,884.000 Person in 2017 and a record low of 1,453,353.000 Person in 1960. Turkey TR: Population in Largest City data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Turkey – Table TR.World Bank: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Population in largest city is the urban population living in the country's largest metropolitan area.; ; United Nations, World Urbanization Prospects.; ;

As of 2024, the leading city for startups in Turkey was Istanbul, with a total score of ***** The capital city, Ankara, followed as second in the ranking, obtaining a score of *** points.

Context

This is a dataset consisting of landmark locations of Turkey, from 3 largest cities; Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

This dataset is created for the purpose of a project for machine learning class. We wanted to build a large dataset which will be used for long time, that is why pictures are not just small pictures. The program we used for classifying images can be found on my github.

Content

This data is split in test and train data. %80 of images is split for training, and the rest is for testing. The file is structured like;

-Location1 |img1.jpg |asdfghg.jpg |xxdgs.jpg -Location2 |more.jpg |pictures.jpg |with_random_names.jpg . . .

The data was collected from flickr, google images, and google places. Google places was a little bit stingy about sharing its data, so we had to find a way around. Most of the scripts which have been used for scrapping the data can be found at my github profile.

Another think to remember is the noise leftover even after so many cleaning process. Sorry for that.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thanks Serhat Saglik, who was my teammate during this project for his efforts.

This horizontal bar chart displays urban population (people) by capital city using the aggregation sum in Turkey. The data is about countries per year.

In the second quarter of 2025, prime office yields equaled 9.5 percent in Izmir, which was the highest figure among the major Turkish cities. This was followed by Ankara, with 9.25 percent.

In 2023, Konya became the leading agricultural city in Turkey, outnumbering all the other ** cities with over **** million hectare of agricultural land. This was followed by Ankara, with approximately **** million hectares of agricultural land.

Graph and download economic data for Geographical Outreach: Number of Branches in 3 Largest Cities, Excluding Headquarters, for Commercial Banks for Turkey (TURFCBODCLNUM) from 2007 to 2015 about branches, Turkey, banks, and depository institutions.

From 2021 to 2023, Istanbul turned out to be the most preferred city for businesses to run e-commerce activities. In 2021, over ******* companies chose to operate in Istanbul, whereas in 2023, this figure rose to more than *******. At the same time, Ankara recorded an increase in business with e-commerce activities, going up from nearly ****** in 2021 to ****** in 2023.

As of the second quarter of 2025, the prime yield of high street shops in the capital city of Turkey, Ankara, amounted to ***** percent. To compare, in Istanbul, this figure was measured as ***** percent.

This horizontal bar chart displays unemployment (% of total labor force) by capital city using the aggregation average in Turkey. The data is about countries per year.

This horizontal bar chart displays life expectancy at birth (year) by capital city using the aggregation average, weighted by population in Turkey. The data is about countries per year.

As of April 21, 2022, the Turkish city with the highest Syrian refugee population was Istanbul, with over half a million. Gaziantep, Hatay, and Şanlıurfa were the cities hosting over ************ Syrian refugees. Additionally, the city with the highest rate of Syrians compared to the local population was Kilis, with **** percent.

The prime industrial yields in the major cities of Turkey remained on the same level from the second quarter of 2022 to the second quarter of 2025. The prime industrial yields for Istanbul and Ankara amounted to *** percent and *** percent, respectively.

In June 2025, prime retail rents in Turkey were the highest in Istanbul, which equated to ***** euros per square meter per year. The lowest figure among the presented major cities was Izmir, with ***** euros per square meter.