Demographics of Istanbul | |
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Population | 15,519,267 (2019) |
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Sources: [1] Pre-Republic figures estimated [lower-alpha 1] |
Throughout most of its history, Istanbul has ranked among the largest cities in the world. By 500 CE, Constantinople had somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 people, edging out its predecessor, Rome, for world's largest city. [4] Constantinople jostled with other major historical cities, such as Baghdad, Chang'an, Kaifeng and Merv for the position of world's most populous city until the 12th century. It never returned to being the world's largest, but remained Europe's largest city from 1500 to 1750, when it was surpassed by London. [5]
The Turkish Statistical Institute estimates that the population of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality was 14,377,019 at the end of 2014, hosting 19 percent of the country's population. [6] Then about 97–98% of the inhabitants of the metropolitan municipality were within city limits, up from 89% in 2007 [7] and 61% in 1980. [8] 64.9% of the residents live on the European side and 35.1% on the Asian side. [9] While the city ranks as the world's 5th-largest city proper, it drops to the 24th place as an urban area and to the 18th place as a metro area because the city limits are roughly equivalent to the agglomeration. Today, it forms one of the largest urban agglomerations in Europe, alongside Moscow. [lower-alpha 2] The city's annual population growth of 3.45 percent ranks as the highest among the seventy-eight largest metropolises in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The high population growth mirrors an urbanization trend across the country, as the second and third fastest-growing OECD metropolises are the Turkish cities of İzmir and Ankara. [12]
Istanbul experienced especially rapid growth during the second half of the 20th century, with its population increasing tenfold between 1950 and 2000. [13] [14] This growth in population comes, in part, from an expansion of city limits—particularly between 1980 and 1985, when the number of Istanbulites nearly doubled. [15] The remarkable growth was, and still is, largely fueled by migrants from eastern Turkey seeking employment and improved living conditions. The number of residents of Istanbul originating from seven northern and eastern provinces is greater than the populations of their entire respective provinces; Sivas and Kastamonu each account for more than half a million residents of Istanbul. [14] Istanbul's foreign population, by comparison, was very small, 42,228 residents in 2007. [16] Only 28 percent of the city's residents are originally from Istanbul. [17] The most densely populated areas tend to lie to the northwest, west, and southwest of the city center, on the European side; the most densely populated district on the Asian side is Üsküdar. [14] As of 2023, Istanbul has Turkey’s biggest foreign migrant population, with 34.5% of foreign nationals in Turkey living there. [18]
Istanbul has been a cosmopolitan city throughout much of its history, but it has become more homogenized since the end of the Ottoman Empire. The vast majority of people across Turkey, and in Istanbul, are Muslim, and more specifically members of the Sunni branch of Islam. Most Sunni Turks follow the Hanafi school of Islamic thought, while Sunni Kurds tend to follow the Shafi'i school. The largest non-Sunni Muslim group, accounting 10-20% of Turkey's population, [19] are the Alevis; a third of all Alevis in the country live in Istanbul. [17] Mystic movements, like Sufism, were officially banned after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, but they still boast numerous followers. [20] Istanbul is a migrant city. Since the 1950s, Istanbul's population has increased from 1 million to about 10 million residents. Almost 200,000 new immigrants, many of them from Turkey's own villages, continue to arrive each year. As a result, the city is constantly changing and being reshaped to meet the needs of these new arrivals. [21]
The Patriarch of Constantinople has been designated Ecumenical Patriarch since the sixth century, and has come to be regarded as the leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians. [22] Since 1601, the Patriarchate has been based in Istanbul's Church of St. George. [23] Into the 19th century, the Christians of Istanbul tended to be either Greek Orthodox, members of the Armenian Apostolic Church or Catholic Levantines. [24] Today, most of Turkey's remaining Greek, Armenian and Assyrian minorities live in or near Istanbul. [25]
Eldem Edhem, in his entry on "Istanbul" in the Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, wrote that about 50% of the residents of the city were Muslim at the turn of the 20th century. [26]
The Arabic newspaper Al Jawaib began in Ottoman Constantinople, established by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq a.k.a. Ahmed Faris Efendi (1804–1887), after 1860. It published Ottoman laws in Arabic, [27] including the Ottoman Constitution of 1876. [27]
Besides the large communities of both foreign and Turkish Arabs in Istanbul and other large cities, most live in the south and southeast. [28] Most Turkish Arabs in Istanbul are Sunni Muslim, while the remaining consists mainly Arab Christians (Antiochian Greek Christians) and Alawites. [29]
Istanbul, the most populous city in Turkey, hosts the highest number of Syrian refugees, with approximately 550,000 registered people. [30]
As of 2015 [update] there are between 50,000 and 70,000 Armenians in Istanbul (0.3-0.5%), down from about 164,000 according to the Ottoman Census of 1913 (14.5%). [31]
Bulgarian newspapers in the late Ottoman period published in Constantinople were Makedoniya, Napredŭk or Napredǎk ("Progress"), Pravo, [32] and Turtsiya; Johann Strauss, author of "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," described the last one as "probably a Bulgarian version of [the French-language paper] La Turquie." [33]
Constantinople had a majority Greek population from the 8th century BCE until the Ottoman conquest in 1453.
After 1453, there remained a group of prominent ethnic Greeks and/or people adopting Greek culture, the Phanariotes, based in the neighbourhood of Phanar, now Fener, in Fatih. About eleven families were a part of the Phanariotes. [34]
The city remained a centre of Greek cultural and political life, and Greeks were a visible presence in the city. According to the Ottoman census of 1893, Greeks made up almost 30% of the city's population, while accounting for 43% of the population in the suburbs. [35] As the city was also home to significant Armenian, Catholic and Jewish minorities, there were more non-Muslims than Muslims in Istanbul, with Muslims making up 44% of the city's population in 1893. [35] The Greek community also dominated the city's economy, owning 50% of the city's total production and distribution capital in 1915. [36] In 1919, of the city's 1,173,670 inhabitants, 364,459 were Greek (31%) and 449,114 were Turk (38%). [37] [38]
Because of events during the 20th century—including the Greek genocide, the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey, a 1942 wealth tax, and the 1955 Istanbul riots—the Greek population, originally centered in Fener and Samatya, has decreased substantially.
At the start of the 21st century, Istanbul's Greek population numbered 3,000 (down from 260,000 out of 850,000 according to the Ottoman Census of 1910, and a peak of 350,000 in 1919). [39] [40]
Even with these reduced numbers, there remains a Greek-language newspaper, Apoyevmatini, in active circulation. [41]
The neighbourhood of Balat used to be home to a sizable Sephardi Jewish community, first formed after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. [42] Romaniotes and Ashkenazi Jews resided in Istanbul even before the Sephardim, but their proportion has since dwindled; today, 1 percent of Istanbul's Jews are Ashkenazi. [43] [44] In large part due to emigration to Israel, the Jewish population nationwide dropped from 100,000 in 1950 to 18,000 in 2005, with the majority living in either Istanbul or İzmir. [45] As of 2022, the Jewish population in Turkey is around 14,500. [46]
The largest ethnic minority in Istanbul is the Kurdish community, originating from eastern and southeastern Turkey. Although the Kurdish presence in the city dates back to the early Ottoman period, [47] the influx of Kurds into the city has accelerated since the beginning of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict with the PKK (i.e. since the late 1970s). [48] About two to four million residents of Istanbul are Kurdish, meaning there are more Kurds in Istanbul than in any other city in the world. [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54]
The Levantines, Latin Christians who settled in Galata during the Ottoman period, played a seminal role in shaping the culture and architecture of then-Constantinople during the 19th and early 20th centuries; their population in Istanbul has dwindled, but they remain in the city in small numbers. [55]
Parallel to the overall demographics of Turkey, Turks are the largest group in Istanbul. Although the presence of Turks in Istanbul goes back to the early Ottoman times, the bulk of this population is composed of recent migrants from the Balkans and Anatolia. [56]
There are other significant ethnic minorities as well, the Bosniaks are the main people of an entire district—Bayrampaşa. [57]
From the increase in mutual cooperation between Turkey and several African States like Somalia and Djibouti, several young students and workers have been migrating to Istanbul in search of better education and employment opportunities. c. 2015 the major areas of African settlement are Eminönü and Yenikapi in Fatih, and Kurtulus and Osmanbey in Şişli. The largest groups of Africans that year were from Nigeria and Somalia, with the latter often working in business and the manufacturing of clothing. There are also Cameroonian, Congolese, and Senegalese communities present, with the first group directly involved in the vending of clothing and the last involved in the sale of goods streetside. [58]
As of 2011 about 900 Japanese persons resided in Istanbul; 768 were officially registered with the Japanese Consulate of Istanbul as of October 2010. Of those living in Istanbul, about 450–500 are employees of Japanese companies and their family members, making up around half of the total Japanese population. Others include students of Turkish language and culture, business owners, and Japanese women married to Turkish men. Istanbul has several Japanese restaurants, a Japanese newspaper, and a 32-page Japanese magazine. [59] According to the Istanbul Japanese School, circa 2019 there were about 2,000 Japanese citizens in the Istanbul area, with about 100 of them being children of the ages in which, in Japan, they would be legally required to attend school. At the same period there were about 110 Japanese companies in operation in the city. [60] Istanbul also has a weekend Japanese education programme, The Japanese Saturday School in Istanbul. [61]
After the Romanian revolution, a significant number of Romanian entrepreneurs started investing and establishing business ventures in Turkey, and a certain proportion chose to take up residence there in Istanbul. There are also Romanian migrant workers, as well as students and artists living in the city. [62] [63] Some sources claim that there are 14,000 Romanians living in Istanbul. [64] There is also a Romanian Orthodox Church in the city. [65] [66]
Russians began migrating to Turkey during the first half of the 1990s. Most had fled the economic problems prevalent after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. During this period, many intermarried and assimilated with locals, bringing a rapid increase in mixed marriages. Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Russians have fled to Turkey, especially Istanbul, after Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of military reservists. [67]
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) (info page on book at Martin Luther University)Constantinople became the capital of the Roman Empire during the reign of Constantine the Great in 330. Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the late 5th century, Constantinople remained the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Latin Empire (1204–1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453–1922). Following the Turkish War of Independence, the Turkish capital then moved to Ankara. Officially renamed Istanbul in 1930, the city is today the largest city and financial centre of Turkey and the largest city in Europe, straddling the Bosporus strait, lying in both Europe and Asia.
Demographic features of the population of Turkey include population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population.
Hakkâri Province, is a province in the southeast of Turkey. The administrative centre is the city of Hakkâri. Its area is 7,095 km2, and its population is 275,333 (2022). The current Governor is Ali Çelik. The province encompasses 8 municipalities, 140 villages and 313 hamlets.
Ortaköy is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Beşiktaş, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 9,423 (2022). It is on the European shore of the Bosphorus. it was originally a small fishing village, known in Greek as Agios Fokas in the Byzantine period and then as Mesachorion.
The history of the Jews in Turkey covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.
Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, is the largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, cultural and historic hub. The city straddles the Bosporus Strait, lying in both Europe and Asia, and has a population of over 15 million residents, comprising 19% of the population of Turkey. Istanbul is the most populous European city and the world's 15th-largest city.
Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization describes a shift whereby populations or places received or adopted Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specifically Turkish rather than merely Turkic, therefore referring to the Ottoman Empire, and the Turkish nationalist policies of the Republic of Turkey toward ethnic minorities in Turkey. As the Turkic states developed and grew, there were many instances of this cultural shift.
The Greeks in Turkey constitute a small population of Greek and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Christians who mostly live in Istanbul, as well as on the two islands of the western entrance to the Dardanelles: Imbros and Tenedos. Greeks are one of the four ethnic minorities officially recognized in Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, together with Jews, Armenians, and Bulgarians.
Arabs in Turkey refers to the 1.5-5 million citizens and residents of Turkey who are ethnically of Arab descent. They are the third-largest minority in the country after the Kurds and the Circassians and are concentrated in a few provinces in Southeastern Anatolia. In addition to this native group, millions of Arab Syrian refugees have sought refuge in Turkey since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Balat is a neighbourhood in the municipality and district of Fatih, Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its population is 11,656 (2022). It is in the old city on the European side of Istanbul, on the western shore of the Golden Horn, sandwiched between Fener and Ayvansaray. Historically, it was the centre of the Jewish community in Istanbul.
Neolithic artifacts, uncovered by archeologists at the beginning of the 21st century, indicate that Istanbul's historic peninsula was settled as far back as the 6th millennium BCE. That early settlement, important in the spread of the Neolithic Revolution from the Near East to Europe, lasted for almost a millennium before being inundated by rising water levels. The first human settlement on the Asian side, the Fikirtepe mound, is from the Copper Age period, with artifacts dating from 5500 to 3500 BCE. In the European side, near the point of the peninsula (Sarayburnu) there was a settlement during the early 1st millennium BCE. Modern authors have linked it to the possible Thracian toponym Lygos, mentioned by Pliny the Elder as an earlier name for the site of Byzantium.
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country located at the juncture of Southeast Europe and West Asia. It is mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in West Asia, with a small portion called East Thrace on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq to the southeast; Syria and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest. Cyprus is off the south coast. Most of the country's citizens are ethnic Turks, while Kurds are the largest ethnic minority. Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city, while Istanbul is its largest city and economic and financial centre.
The languages of Turkey, apart from the official language Turkish, include the widespread Kurdish (Kurmanji) and Arabic, and a number of less common minority languages. Four minority languages are officially recognized in the Republic of Turkey by the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty of 18 October 1925: Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Hebrew. In 2013, the Ankara 13th Circuit Administrative Court ruled that the minority provisions of the Lausanne Treaty should also apply to Assyrians in Turkey and the Syriac language.
Christianity in Turkey has a long history dating back to the early origins of Christianity in Asia Minor during the 1st century AD. In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25 percent in 1914 to 3–5.5 percent in 1927, to 0.3–0.4%, roughly translating to 200,000–320,000 devotees. The percentage of Christians in Turkey fell mainly as a result of the late Ottoman genocides: the Armenian genocide, Greek genocide, and Assyrian genocide, the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the emigration of Christians that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, and due to events such as the 1942 Varlık Vergisi tax levied on non-Muslim citizens in Turkey and the 1955 Istanbul pogrom against Greek and Armenian Christians. Exact numbers are difficult to estimate as many former Muslim converts to Christianity often hide their Christian faith for fear of familial pressure, religious discrimination, and persecution.
Religion in Istanbul covers the issue of religion in the city of Istanbul, Turkey. More than 90% of Istanbul's population are Sunni Muslims and Alevism forms the second biggest religious group. A 2019 survey study by KONDA that examined the religiosity of the voting-age adults in Istanbul showed that 47% of the surveyed had a religion and were trying to practise its requirements. This was followed by nonobservant people with 34% who identified with a religion but generally did not practise its requirements. 11% stated they were fully devoted to their religion, meanwhile 4% were non-believers who did not believe the rules and requirements of a religion and 4% were atheists who did not believe in religion at all. 24% of the surveyed also identified themselves as "religious conservatives".
Bulgarians in Turkey form a minority of Turkey. They are Bulgarian expatriates in Turkey or Turkish citizens was born there of full or partially Bulgarian descent. People of Bulgarian ancestry include a large number from the Pomak and a very small number of Orthodox of ethnic Bulgarian origin. Bulgarian Christians are officially recognized as a minority by the Turkey-Bulgaria Friendship Treaty of 18 October 1925.
By the time the Ottoman Empire rose to power in the 14th and 15th centuries, there had been Jewish communities established throughout the region. The Ottoman Empire lasted from the early 14th century until the end of World War I and covered parts of Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, and much of the Middle East. The experience of Jews in the Ottoman Empire is particularly significant because the region "provided a principal place of refuge for Jews driven out of Western Europe by massacres and persecution."
Minorities in Turkey form a substantial part of the country's population, representing an estimated 25 to 28 percent of the population. Historically, in the Ottoman Empire, Islam was the official and dominant religion, with Muslims having different duties from non-Muslims. Non-Muslim (dhimmi) ethno-religious groups were legally identified by different millet ("nations").
The total number of Kurds in Istanbul is estimated variously from 3 to 4 million. Because Istanbul is widely accepted to house the largest Kurdish population in any city in the world, it is often dubbed as the biggest Kurdish city. The influx of Kurds to Istanbul was also motivated by the forced depopulation of Kurdish villages during the Kurdish Turkish conflict.
Levantines in Turkey or Turkish Levantines, refers to the descendants of Europeans who settled in the coastal cities of the Ottoman Empire to trade, especially after the Tanzimat era. Their estimated population today is around 1,000. They mainly reside in Istanbul, İzmir and Mersin. Anatolian Muslims called Levantines Frenk and tatlısu Frengi in addition to Levanten. Turkish Levantines are mostly Latin Catholics.
İstanbul'da 8 milyon 156 bin 696 kişi Avrupa, 4 milyon 416 bin 867 vatandaş da Asya yakasında bulunuyor (In Istanbul there are 8,156,696 people in Europe, 4,416,867 citizens in Asia)
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