Türkiye’s steady mid-year headcount bump has officially pushed the national tally to 86.3 million as of July 1, according to fresh figures released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).
The country’s population, which stood at 86 million at the end of 2025, increased by 228,434 during the first six months of this year, TÜİK said on Aug. 20.
Between May 1 and July 1 alone, the population rose by 123,904.
As of July 1, men accounted for 50.01 percent of the population, while women accounted for 49.99 percent.
By presidential decree, the 2026–2035 period has been designated as the “Decade of Family and Population” in Türkiye.
Led by the Family and Social Services Ministry, the initiative relies on strategic action plans to tackle dwindling birth rates, strengthen family structures and protect the country’s demographic balance.
Drawing on data from TÜİK and other public agencies, a new analytics platform will track family and population trends to help policymakers trace the roots and long-term impacts of demographic shifts.
The strategy comes as Türkiye’s birth rate continues to decline. According to TÜİK, 895,374 babies were born in 2025, with boys accounting for 51.4 percent of births and girls 48.6 percent.
The country’s total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have during her lifetime — fell to 1.42 in 2025, down from 2.38 in 2001. It has remained below 2.1 children per woman, the level needed for a population to replace itself without migration, for the past nine years.
The number of provinces with very low birth rates has also increased dramatically. In 2017, only four of the country’s 81 provinces had fertility rates below 1.50, compared with 59 provinces in 2025.
