Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey


There are 81 provinces in Turkey. Among the 81 provinces, thirty are designated metropolitan municipalities. Metropolitan municipalities are subdivided into districts, where each district includes a corresponding district municipality, which is a second tier municipality.

History

The first metropolitan municipalities were established in 1984. These were the three most populous cities in Turkey, namely; İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir. In each metropolitan municipality a number of second level municipalities were established. In 1986, four new metropolitan municipalities were established in Adana, Bursa, Gaziantep and Konya. Two years later the total number was increased to eight with the addition of Kayseri. In 1993, seven new metropolitan municipalities were established in Antalya, Diyarbakır, Erzurum, Eskişehir, Mersin, Kocaeli and Samsun. Following the earthquake of 1999, Sakarya was also declared a metropolitan municipality.
Before 2004, only the urban centers with a population more than 750,000 were declared metropolitan centers. However, in 2004, the concept of metropolitan municipality was redefined in Istanbul and Kocaeli, where thenceforth metropolitan municipality borders would overlap with provincial borders. In 2012, this was extended to other metropolitan municipalities. Thus, all provinces with a population in excess of 750,000 were declared metropolitan municipality and accordingly the number of metropolitan municipalities has sharply increased. The following 13 cities became metropolitan municipalities:
Later, with the addition of Ordu, the total number of the metropolitan municipalities was increased to 30.

List of metropolitan areas



Metropolitan municipalitiesDate of establishmentPopulation Population Number of districts
Adana05.06.19862,149,1602,237,94015
Ankara23.03.19845,045,0835,639,07625
Antalya09.09.19932,158,2652,511,70019
Aydın06.12.20121,020,9571,110,97217
Balıkesir06.12.20121,162,7611,228,62020
Bursa18.06.19862,740,9703,056,12017
Denizli06.12.2012963,4641,037,20819
Diyarbakır09.09.19931,607,4371,756,32317
Erzurum09.09.1993766,729762,06220
Eskişehir09.09.1993799,724887,47514
Gaziantep20.06.19861,844,4382,069,3649
Hatay06.12.20121,503,0661,628,89415
Mersin09.09.19931,705,7741,840,42513
İstanbul23.03.198414,160,46715,519,26739
İzmir23.03.19844,061,0744,367,25130
Kayseri07.12.19881,295,3551,407,40916
Kocaeli09.09.19931,676,2021,953,03512
Konya20.06.19862,079,2252,232,37431
Malatya06.12.2012762,538800,16513
Manisa06.12.20121,359,4631,440,61117
Kahramanmaraş06.12.20121,075,0761,154,10211
Mardin06.12.2012779,738838,77810
Muğla06.12.2012866,665983,14213
Ordu14.03.2013731,452754,19819
Sakarya06.03.2000917,3731,029,65016
Samsun09.09.19931,261,8101,348,54217
Tekirdağ06.12.2012874,4751,055,41211
Trabzon06.12.2012758,237808,97418
Şanlıurfa06.12.20121,801,9802,073,61413
Van06.12.20121,070,1131,136,75713
TotalN/A58,999,70164,669,459519

Since the total population of Turkey is 83,154,997, the population in the 30 provinces make up 77% of the population of the country.