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Türkiye’s population increased in 2025, yet the share of people living outside urban centers continued to fall, according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). While more residents were recorded in city and district centers, the number living in smaller settlements such as towns and villages moved down, and single-person households kept building up to a new high.
TurkStat data put Türkiye’s total population at 86.09 million in 2025, up by 427,224 from the previous year. Over the same period, the proportion of people registered in province and district centers edged up to 93.6%, leaving 6.4% living in towns and villages, a category that applies in provinces outside the 30 metropolitan municipalities.
People living in towns and villages were recorded at 5,536,693 in 2025, down 2.1% from 5,657,686 in 2024. By contrast, those living in province and district centers were recorded at 80,555,475.
Within this distribution, Istanbul remained the largest province by population, with 15,754,053 residents, accounting for 18.3% of Türkiye’s total. Ardahan was listed as the smallest by population, at 40,845.
Looking only at the population living in towns and villages, Afyonkarahisar had the highest rural-settlement count (284,162), while Tunceli had the lowest (28,045).
TurkStat recorded the 15–64 age group (defined as the working-age population) at 68.5% of the total in 2025. The 0–14 age group came in at about 20.4%, while those 65 and older were listed at 11.1%.
Within the 5.5 million people living in towns and villages, the data showed 885,390 children aged 0–14, roughly 3.5 million people aged 15–64, and roughly 1.2 million aged 65 and above.
Türkiye’s population was recorded as 43,059,434 men and 43,032,734 women in 2025, keeping the national split very close.
At the provincial level, the number of provinces where women outnumber men rose to 36 in 2025, up from 33 a year earlier. Provinces listed among those with more women included Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa, Adana, Konya, Samsun, Kayseri, Eskisehir, Erzurum, Sivas, and Trabzon.
In towns and villages specifically, the 5,536,693 residents consisted of 2,859,137 men and 2,677,556 women.
Separate TurkStat household data showed single-person households rising above 5.5 million in 2025, reaching 5,523,321. The number of one-person households was recorded at 3,316,894 in 2016, meaning the total increased by 66.5% over the 2016–2025 period.
The year-by-year series highlighted sharper jumps during the COVID-19 period, with one-person households rising from 4,062,576 in 2019 to 4,404,997 in 2020, and then to 4,781,600 in 2021, before continuing to climb to 5,321,540 in 2024 and 5,523,321 in 2025.
The largest counts of people living alone were recorded in major cities: Istanbul (981,614) led, followed by Ankara (400,484) and Izmir (375,380). Antalya (206,905) and Bursa (192,914) also ranked among the top provinces. In total, 10 metropolitan municipalities accounted for 2,768,625 one-person households, which the data described as more than half of the nationwide total.
At the other end of the scale, the smallest numbers of people living alone were recorded in Bayburt (6,128), Ardahan (7,157), and Hakkari (8,274).
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