According to information provided by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) and in accordance with calculations using the UN Population Fund's 2009 data, İstanbul's population growth rate in two years was equal to more
than the total populations of 32 provinces in the country.
This could be envisaged as İstanbul growing by the entire population of Bayburt province every four months, the entire population of Tunceli every four-and-a-half months, the population of Ardahan every six months or the populations of Gümüşhane and Kilis every seven months.
According to the figures, Ankara also recorded some serious -- although incomparable -- growth, growing by 101,863 people in two years, equivalent to increasing by the entire population of both the Tunceli and Bayburt provinces.
Among the provinces, Çankırı is seeing the fastest growth, bringing its 1.2 percent growth rate in 2007-08 up to 5.07 percent in 2008-09. The most striking population growth trend has been observed in Bilecik province, with the 2007-08 growth rate of -5.21 percent soaring to 4.60 percent in 2008-09.
Overall, significant factors in population changes in Turkey’s provinces have been migration patterns and the opening of universities, dormitories, military divisions and prisons. The growth rate in Ankara rose from 1.84 percent to 2.24 percent in the past two years, with İstanbul’s rate rising from .98 percent to 1.72 percent; İzmir saw a rise from 1.51 to 1.91 percent. Hatay is now growing at a rate of 2.49 percent annually (up from 1.95 percent two years ago), while Mersin is growing at a rate of 2.37 percent, up from 0.44 percent.
Yalova’s population growth has slowed the most, dropping from 8.61 percent annually to 2.59 percent. Similarly, population growth has slowed in Tekirdağ (5.82 percent down to 1.63 percent), Hakkari (4.92 percent to -0.71 percent), Tunceli (from 2.89 percent to -3.92 percent), Şırnak (from 3.19 percent down to 0.26 percent) and Ardahan (from -0.42 percent to -3.63 percent).
Overall in Turkey, the population growth rate rose from 1.32 percent to 1.46 percent.
